You will read this article by Dr. Motunrayo J. Adetola This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, as posted on www.nigeriaworld.com, June 4, 2012. I have the view that you will see the issues and points argued as they pertain to the debate on same sex marriage.

Here is therefore what Dr. Motunrayo Adetola has put forward.

I have been a regular reader and learnt an awful lot from the write ups of Dr. Akintide on the Nigeriaworld website. I am grateful for his insights, knowledge, and style of writing. He is an unabashed supporter of President Obama. I am certain he is with the majority of followers of Nigeriaworld in his enthusiastic support for Mr. Obama both for his policies and re-election bid. My intention is to present a differing opinion from a Christian view since ultimately, the most strident opposition to same sex marriage is from the Christian right. I have, on a couple of occasions, exchanged e-mails with Dr. Akintide and he has been very gracious to answer and educate me. I regard him highly. Dr. Akintide’s article seemingly stemmed from President Obama’s recent endorsement of gay marriage. The article can be found here SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

In his write up posted in Nigeriaworld on 14th May, 2012 titled “Same Sex Marriage”, Dr. Akintide laboured the point from a humanistic angle of acceptance of same sex marriage like Obama did after his 48 hours of “evolving” on the issue. There are many from both mainstream political parties inAmericawho are heading in this direction and are sympathetic to the gay movement’s advocacy for equal recognition for both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. My issues with the article were some of the biblical hermeneutics and rationale that Dr. Akintide employed for why society should accept same sex marriage.

Same sex marriage was an issue that we Nigerians grappled with in 2011 when the National Assembly took it upon itself to legislate and prescribe jail time for same sex relationships withinNigeria. The legislators, many religious leaders, and political commentators in Nigeria fouled up that issue in my opinion by the mostly insulting, degrading and less than sensitive manner in which that discourse was handled. A common statement at the time like “homosexuality is not African” is unwise and does not correlate with realities everywhere on our continent. The bible does not anywhere rate homosexuality as a sin higher than for instance adultery or fornication.SodomandGomorrahwere not punished because of homosexuality but because of their wickedness which they aptly demonstrated by seeking to gang sodomise the angelic visitors who were visitingLot. The Christian position is as we find in Romans 3 verse 23, which states that “all have sinned and come short of the glory, marker, standard of God for his human creation” (emphasis mine). It is my hope thatNigeriawill change this unjust law from its books. Gay Nigerians have not caused any ofNigeria’s problems, incompetence and greed have.

Dr Akintide wrote “I thank God that none of my 8 children, male and female has said he or she is gay or lesbian, but if any of them happens to be gay or lesbian, am I going to disown him or her? Hell no. The worst I could do is to let them know I am embarrassed about it but I am still going to continue to love them. I am able to use the word embarrassment to describe the frustration would feel only because attitudes to same-sex marriage in Nigeria or shall I say in much of the third world is equally changing in large part because of the geo-political influence of America on the rest of the world.” I am very much in agreement with Dr Akintide here and every parent has a responsibility to love their offspring, bring them up in a loving manner but allow them make up their minds where they have chosen to go morally and otherwise. God is similarly embarrassed by our choice to act contrary to what He wants for us with our sins but loving enough to welcome us into His warm embrace. The Christian position is depicted in the biblical story of the prodigal sons where God is the perfect and loving father, loving enough to give the junior son his inheritance (to squander) but loving enough to daily yearn and scan the horizon in expectation of the return of the prodigal. We humans are the prodigal in that story. The notion, as Dr Akintide stated in his write up about the Bible being antiquated with human foibles and has “few contradictions” none of which were given in the write up, is not only inaccurate and misleading but assumes, like many critics of the Christian faith, that since human beings are fallible and do err, the books they author are likely to betray weakness. Christians however believe humans wrote the Bible essentially as God’s secretaries, directed by the Holy Spirit and we receive these books (the Bible is a compilation of books) as the very word of God, infallible, instructive and applicable for all ages by which mankind is thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy3:16-17).

Dr Akintide stated the popular aphorism; “the only dynamic in nature is change” which may be true for us humans in certain regards but the eternal truths of God and on how he relates to us humans are unchanging. I feel certain that the no one will want the pilot of a plane in which he is travelling experimenting with an alternate reference point instead of choosing the standard reference point in his itinerary nor for the government of the day contemplating changing its laws to permit individuals pick and choose which laws of the land they seek to obey or not. Such changes will bring chaos to orderly societies. A society may change in certain things which are not fundamental but not in the things that are the very reason it continues to exist like the family unit as we have always known it. A society that does this undermines itself and ultimately self-destructs. This is the very reason that nations have laws and they do not change them with every new wind of ideas that blows through. It wasSaint Augustine, the famous African and father of the Church in the 4th century who stated that fallacies should not cease to be fallacies even if they become fashion. Fashions come and they go but society must remain.

The point about a study showing a slight majority of Catholics (and you have to ask how a Catholic or Christian is defined) are now in favour of same sex marriage is not good enough reason to change the norm In any case, the bible teaches not to fall in with the majority to do that which is wrong (Exodus 23 verse 2). The majority opinion as we can tell in both ancient and contemporary societies is not a good guide of how a civil society should run. All humans, gay or straight should be accorded the same level of respect and dignity and affirmed as human beings, the creation of God but having marriage redefined as inclusive of same sex relationships is a huge leap with consequences, the beginnings of which we have not yet seen and which other people have written about elsewhere. The author of the book of Proverbs says there is a way that looks right to man but the end of it is that of destruction (Proverbs 14 vs.12) and our civilisation may well be heading down this part by the social experimentation that we are engaging in with the issue of same sex marriage. Where should we end the redefinition of marriage? What if 3 men and 2 women, all consenting adults (and declaring their love) decide to have their relationship defined as marriage?

In the article, a reference was made to the biblical story ofBabel, “…theTowerofBabelrestriction is now history and nothing more. Rather than God confusing or demotingAmerica…” The story found in the book of Genesis chapter 6 is precisely an argument against humanistic endeavors bereft of God rather than a dependence on God and adherence to His direction in human lives. It is a story that underlines the present attempts of humans to redefine what we consider good for us, shape our own destinies and in short, rebel against God’s rule. It is not a story that is contrary to the God given strength of human endeavour to have dominion over all His work including the conquering of space. In any case,Americahas gone to space and moon but has not built to heaven as the people ofBabelin the story sought to do.

Ultimately, we should build societies where fundamental human rights are respected despite the sexual orientation, colour, creed or whatever but to just change long standing foundations of society because it has become fashionable at this time is wrong. The evolution of Mr. Obama’s thought and his consequent metamorphosis within 2 days in support of gay marriage which happens to be a calculated political move to assuage the restive gay movement inAmericamay help Obama in the short run but not benefitAmericaand societies the world over in the long run. What will next become fashionable tomorrow? Should we accept it because opinion polls tilt that way? I suggest a No.

My opinion then is that we as a people need to listen doubly, firstly to the agitation of the gay movement, empathise and share the pain of inequality which has characterised our collective treatment of fellow humans like the National Assembly of Nigeria have done by criminalising homosexuality, obviously to deflect the incompetence of the political class in Nigeria in matters of most importance to its citizens. Secondly, we are to listen to eternal truths by which God has guided and continues to lead His people and to not deviate from them. Apostle Paul in his letter to Corinthians tells us of our natural state as sinners being idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals and the lot but are saved by faith in Christ Jesus and therefore made right before our God (1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 paraphrased). It does not matter what the sin is, Christ paid the ultimate penalty and we are to desist from further pursuits of them, not celebrate nor institutionalise them.

…………………………………

Motunrayo Adetola is a Physician. I thank Dr. Kunle Oyekanmi for his constructive critique of this write up and my daughter, Dipo for adding a teenager’s voice

By Chioma Gabriel:

Much comments had been offered on the Dana Air Crash Tragedy in Nigeria. Yet the misfortunes and shocks are not over to talk about. This post must touch you in order to understand further what some communities, families, friends, peers and colleagues of the victims of the crash are passing through. Apart from the air crash being so traumatizing at the instance of the occurrence, the nightmare is not done with in any measure and sense of the irreparable tragedy. From where would one tell the story, or in deed, end it? Nigerians would not be migrating in high numbers to other countries for the basic necessities of life if things are going well in the country called Nigeria. Would paying compensations to the affected families or so end this type of mishap? Would Nigerians living abroad not be scared the more to venture flying with the funny airlines operating locally across the country? When will Nigerians using the air routes be re-assured that families like this one in this story will be well again? The roads are intolerable, the seas and rivers are non-starters, and the airs are giving more harm than good. By which way shall we go? Guess what, there must be a way to go and that way begins with having leaders who not only feel for the vulnerable Nigerians but are also eager to work tirelessly and selflessly to take action and make things happen for the good of all. The good of all includes safety, security, opportunity, inclusion, and participation by everyone. The good of all also involves a time when politicians need not parade themselves about as money-bags and untouchables, instead of being servant leaders by serving the vulnerable Nigerian community populations first.

Without mincing words, and for me, Patrick Iroegbu, personally, after reading this post in Vanguard Online edition of Saturday, June 9, 2012, I could not resist the mind pounding thoughts of sharing the story of a family that perished in the tragedy. I discern that this story has touched many - at home and in the diaspora, it also highlights the sort of misfortune any Nigerian family can face in a time of poor leadership of the government of the day where the aviation industry and maintenance safety standards are covered up with infectious selfishness and corrosive corruption. In addition, those who died in this tragedy are now not alive to speak up. But can we keep quiet because we are not the very dead today? To speak up for the huge number of the victims is speaking up for ourselves too. Reading this article will touch you and I hope it sends the hard message home about what corruption, negligence and laissez affaire rhetorics of public transportation safety - be it by air, sea, land and undergound can result into and why it is also urgent for people who experience difficulties travelling with public transportation devices should raise alarm when it matters to do so before something bad happens.    

In deed, this is the end of the beginning: Onyeka and Maimuna Anyaene: So, so, sad a love story of this family who went abroad to seek for a better life and returning home to end up just like that. "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and loud lamentation; Rachel was weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more." Jeremiah 31:15

Indeed, for a long time to come, the love story of Onyeka and Maimuna Anyaene would be a reference point for all lovebirds. It was a love story that defied ethnicity, religion and all reasonable imaginations such that death could not do them part. Their love story from its beginning to its end was so strong that even the legendary William Shakespeare would have turned in his grave in envy for a real life love story that trascends the story of Romeo and Juliet. Onyeka Anyaene was a decent young man. The last time I saw him was last year when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal visitedLagosfor a parley with Editors after he was sworn in as Speaker. Onyeka came in his entourage and during our encounter, I realised he was working in the Speaker's Chambers.

But knowing him went beyond Tambuwal's visit toLagos. Onyeka Anyaene was a very close friend of my brother Emeka Obiakor who is also a lawyer. Their friendship was so deep that Onyeka was spending a lot of time in our house then at No 11 Ladipo Street Olodi Apapa in the 1990s. He was always kind and was never given to talking too much even though he could crack jokes out of very serious situations. I spoke with him occasionally after the Tambuwal visit and then this. At Ndiowu in Orumba North LG ofAnambraState, the mood was sombre. The peace loving people of the sprawling town ofNdiowuin Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State, unfortunately are the worst hit by the crash of the Dana Flight 992 of Sunday June 3, 2012.

Like other Nigerians ,most members of the community were either relaxing or watching the Eagles football match which was the greatest event of the day when the news of a plane crash filtered into the town. No one took it seriously until Monday June 4, 2012 when the manifest was released indicating the town had lost over six members of its own. People clustered around popular joints like the Ibeagwu, Avenue and Easy Junction, a popular joint beside Onyeka Anyaene's beautiful mansion.

The joy of the previous days' Football victory against the Namibians had suddenly given way to a flood of anguish, dismay and wailing. Along with other villages, Ubaha village was thrown into mourning just as members of the St Lawrence Anglican Church where he worshippers were seen in groups whispering, wondering and ruminating over what has befallen them. The atmosphere was so tensed up you could almost touch it. To insiders, the mood of the community was not a surprise considering the popularity of the Anyaene's family as a result of the contributions of their late father Ben Anyaene, a popular church teacher whose intelligence and selfless service touched the lives of many citizens of the community.

First to break the news was Chibueze Kingsley Kanu who wrote on the community's forum on facebook "Please my dear brothers and sisters,can someone help to find out which of the Anyaenes. According to the manifest of the Dana Air plane crash, I saw Onyeka Anyaene and other Anyaenes in the manifest. Please make some diligent findings". It was no longer a matter of speculation when the towns' President General, Engineer Chike Emenike followed it up on the same platform asking for prayers. Hell was let loose as comments and lamentations began to flow. As at the time of writing this report, it had become a deluge.

One reaction that touches the essence and soul is captured by NkolikaNwankwo, a daughter of a prominent citizen of the community. She says. "I have called out severally and cannot but cry out now again for us all to demand immediate change.We cannot allow this country to drift so aimlessly whilst innocent lives are being lost in such cruel, irresponsible and heartless ways. So many children are orphaned, so many parents forced to bury their children, some in totally un-identifiable states, because we sit back hoping someone else will speak up. Is it when, God forbid, it comes home that we will feel the pain of this carnage? It could have been anyone of us caught on a distressed flight, unable to land even after a May Day call. Hers and others on that flight are gone out of negligence. A death that has resulted from the criminally negligent act of another should immediately be prosecuted.

" The Dana management and Nigerian officials responsible should be tried and jailed for mass manslaughter. This corruption, nepotism, criminal negligence, dereliction of duties, state sponsorship of terrorism, blatant theft of state property, murder of innocent souls, must end. We must re-occupy until we are heard. We and no one else, must end this!"

The death of Onyeka and his family was the third of its kind for the community and apparently seems to be too much to bear. The first was the ADC airline which claimed the life of Ifeanyi Kanu. IfeanyiKanu was a young man that was yet to find his bearing after graduation. He was a member of the ADC crew that perished without compensation on the ADC flight. This was closely followed by the Kenya Airline that claimed yet another member of the Kanu's family, the Sosoliso clash also claimed one of its own and now the Dana Airline flight 992.

Onyeka was in his early 40s and has had a successful career as a lawyer. He was a law graduate of theUniversityofJosand the eight out of a family of 10. Of course,he was the last of the six men born by late Ben and Madam MercyAnyaene of Ubaha village inNdiowuTown, Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State. Onyeka was a twin with her sister Odinaka. The Anyaenes had lived in Townhouse, in Elmwood's newly-developed Quaker Green condominium complex, for several years. According to the Hartford Courant, Maimuna, Onyeka's heart throb was a human resources manager for United Technologies inGoldBuildinginHartford. One report says that residents described the neighbourhood as very community-oriented, where neighbours immediately reach out to meet newcomers. Anyaene's family would socialize by the pool, and come to neighbourhood parties, they said. The mood in hisLagosresidence was even dizzier following the arrival from theUnited Statesof the family's elder brother Dr Anyaene Tuesday night. Tears flowed uncontrollably as emotions poured out for the whiz kid who was just bringing his family home for the first time for mum to see and hug. " Where is Onyeka and the kids he promised to bring to me," his mum oblivious of what was happening around her would demand from time to time. Providing a suitable and comforting answer was a big challenge and would remain so for long. InConnecticut,United Stateswhere Maimuna lived with her kids before the ill-fated crash that claimed her life and her kids, a makeshift memorial is being put in place tomorrow.

Already, flowers, stuffed animals, and photographs now blanket the front stoop of28 Park PlaceCircle inWest Hartford, the townhome where Maimuna Anyaene lived with her four children before they perished. "Your family will be in our hearts forever," reads one handmade card which included a photo of Maimuna and one of her children in costume. Hundreds of friends and relatives from all over the globe also expressed shock, grief, and condolences through a website dedicated to the memory of Maimuna, her husband Onyeka, and the couple's four children. A total of nine members of Anyaene's family perished in the crash. In addition to Maimuna and Onyeka, the couple's four children;Kamsi, twins Kayna and Kayne, and baby Kamal, also known as Noah; Maimuna's mother, Hajiya Berikisu Mijindad, and two cousins were passengers on the plane. The family was en route toNigeriato attend the wedding of Maimuna's brother Ndako, which was scheduled for June 9. Maimuna and her four children lived in West Hartford, but her husband, Onyeka, lived and worked inNigeriamost of the time.

Anyaene's oldest child, Kamsi, was a student atWhiting Lane'sEarlyLearningCenter. Dr. Eileen Howley, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum for the West Hartford Public Schools, read the following statement at Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting: "The entire education community extends its deepest condolences. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family." Maimuna, 32, was originally fromZaria,Nigeria. She graduated from theUniversityofIbadanin 2001. She earned a Master's Degree from the Smeal College of Business atPennsylvaniaStateUniversityin 2006. Her brother Mohammed Mijindadi also obtained an MBA atPennState, graduating in 2008. "It's certainly difficult for us to know that she's not with us anymore," said Robin Brouse, director of MBA student services at the Smeal College of Business.

The MBA program is a small, close-knit group of 85-100 students in each cohort, Brouse said, and the students and staff know each other very well. "Maimuna was a very special person. She had an infectious smile and was a humble and kind person. It was joyful to have her come through the office. It's hard to fathom," Brouse said. A post on the Smeal College of Business' Facebook page reads, "It is with great sorrow that we pass along the news that Maimuna (Mijindadi) Anyaene, along with her husband, four children and her mother were killed in the Nigerian plane crash last Sunday. Maimuna was a Smeal MBA graduate of the Class of 2006. Our deepest sympathies go out to the Anyaenes and Mijindadi families, especially Maimuna's brother Mohammed (MBA '08). We will pass along any news or updates we receive in the coming days." Brouse said that the University has not yet made any definitive plans for a memorial. Maimuna Anyene worked in the human resources department at United Technologies. UTC spokesperson Maureen Fitzgerald said in a statement, "Maimuna Anyaene was an invaluable part of the United Technologies team for more than four years. We are saddened by the loss, and our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends around the world. She will be deeply missed by all, including her colleagues at UTC."

In a website dedicated to the memory of Maimuna, her husband Onyeka, and the couple's four children, over 1000 condolences have been posted by family members, friends, school mates, colleagues in the office and those who were touched by the tragic love story of Maimuna and her husband. Onyeka's sister is former Vice President Alex Ekwueme's wife. In their family house in Ndiowu,AnambraState, the villgers were still too stunned to express their sorrow. Onyeka Anyaene's twin sister, Odinaka as at Thursday had not recovered from the shock and the entire village could not comprehend what came upon them. Writing his condolence on Maimuna's Facebook, Uche Okeke revealed " Ada Ekwueme, my friend was your husband's niece and that was how I met you before you got married. I andAdawere always at Elf estate where your husband lived. When I heard fromAdathat all of you were on that ill fated flight, my heart bled and still bleeds. When your corpse was found, your husband was on top of you and your kids. He protected you and your children from burning but rather got himself burnt beyond recognition all for his family. You both loved each other to death. Maimuna, we will not question our creator, but may you all rest in perfect peace till we meet to part no more."

A childhood friend, Kunle Lawal recalled their days fromZaria. Growing up with Maimuna in the ancient city ofZazzauhad fond memories of an always smiling,pretty lady. She was very intelligent and we kept in touch even after she left the shores of Nigeria.She had a wonderful personality. Its tragic how you left ,my old friend but who are we to question the Almighty." A University colleague, Uju King, nee Enuenwosu is yet to get over her shock. " I just can't believe it. I can rememeber our fun days onBenueroad quarters in UI. It's so sad.I ask myself if I feel this way, then I shudder to think what her relations and closest friends are feeling right now. May God grant us all the fortitude to bear this grave and unjust loss of such a beautiful, loving family." A relation of the Anyaene's, UO was looking forward to the wedding for which Maimuna and her kids returned but the story turned out differently. " I was expecting to see you at the wedding over the weekend so we could have a drink, have a good laugh, talk about the good old days, but do you and the kids, your mother and your husband had to go so soon. Ehm, sleep well Maimuna and take care of the kids okay."

Her school daughter, EmemAssam's heart is still racing. "I couldn't sleep for two days. Maimuna, you were my school mother and dorm mate in Queen's College and then my school mate in UI. Somehow, you've always been there. Your laughter, those dimples!!!You taught me so much in boarding school. All those secrets. I remember the days we used to exercise together. You did all those sit ups and leg ups and kept adding on everyday. You'll hold my legs, then I'll hold yours. Then leg ups, then more. You had so much faith in me! Even more than I had in myself. You never missed a prayer! You inspired me. You handed over your prefectship to me, and taught me how to ring the bell for dinner, do inspections, etc. No, I didn't become a prefect but I know you believed in me. I knew you'd make a perfect mother and wife. I wish I was able to see you one more time last year in DC. I feel bad for not reaching out more in the recent years. I can go on and on. I wish I got to see you and your family. I wish our children and husbands became friends. I wish I know we'll meet again. For me to hurt this much here, I can only imagine how your family is doing."

Maimuna's neighbour , Gail Goddard inWest Hartford,Connecticut,United Statessaw her last "a little over two weeks ago at our town library's used book sale. We were picking out books for her children to read, and be read to, which was very important to her. We then had lunch and discussed the trip toNigeriaand her new job opportunity inRhode Island. Maimuna was radiantly beautiful that day, as always with her calm smile even though she had so much going on in her life. I cannot believe she and all of her children are not coming back fromNigeria. I am crying writing this. So sad, so much loss, so much to mourn." Joke Thompson would always remember Maimuna's loud and heartily laughter on the phone when she called her that saturday, a day before the unfortunate incident. "Your loud laugh through the phone still rings in my head. I met with you atSami Courtin Maitama that Saturday.I saw all of you, your mum, husband, children and cousins. We all gisted at the dinning area.Mummy was so hilarious as we talked and laughed about everything. You asked about everyone. Mummmy told me you all would be flying on Dana the next day. She asked who owned Dana flight and we said we have no idea, she then wanted to know if it was a good flight. Hmmmm, I wish I told you all I know about it now, just wish all the news flying around by the flight had come in a day earlier. Would it have stopped you? Maimuna, you said you wondered why anyone could name a flight Dana, that it sounds funny. We took pictures with your camera. Mummy also snapped us with hers and I snapped with my phone.I was privileged to meet you all before your last day."

Another childhood friend, Kayode Gbodi remebered their days and " those precious times we all spent back in the days at both our homes at Area A in Zaria and NVRI Qtrs in Vom/Jos,from childhood. We played,ate and did so much together as brother and sister. I remember your warm welcome and hospitality,coupled with your entertainment with a barrage of albums with thousands of beautiful pictures. As an undergraduate at U.I when I visited from O.A.U,you always loved trapping memorable moments in pictures like you knew.They are vivid display of your smiley and warm personality, now vivid for all to see across continents.Those lovely pictures of yours really took hours to glance through,but were really worth the while.I will miss you Sis,Mumsi,Oluchi and all your adorable angels and their dad." Rita Eyo Arharhire saw Onyeka on Tuesday before they died on Sunday. "I saw Onyeka on Tuesday before this accident, how marriage had changed him for the better. Where you are now, there will be no more death and sorrow. May your souls rest in perfect peace"

The Anene family memorial services would hold tomorrow at 10am at beachland park47 Squaker laneWestHartford,CT06110.

May the souls of all those who lost their lives to death caused by the Dana Air Crash Tragedy rest in peace, amen! Lord take all of them to heaven directly, as you gracefully forgive whatever sins they committed against you in their travails in this wicked world. More importantly, the innocent children who were killed deserve all your grace to dwel with thee, Lord. A story of coming to ala beke to live a better life and returning home just to perish? May this shocking and embarassing tragedy not happen again in this way through better leadership in Nigeria! (Patrick Iroegbu, June 11, 2012).

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This article was culled from Vanguard Online, June 9, 2012. Just Human. 

By Mirjam Rülke

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dear Dr. Iroegbu,

Posting articles in the websites since the discovery and launching of the internet, electronic writings and publications have come a long way. This is more so at helping researchers and social networking for critical research, education and policy directions. I have truly benefitted from reading insightful articles from various experts. Particularly, I have had the pleasure to follow closely essays written by Dr. Patrick Iroegbu about issues on indigenous knowledge systems, medicine, gender and cultures. I want to highlight the fact that while it is important to appreciate articles posted by seasoned scholars and professionals, it makes sense at the same time to help researchers gain more values by considering their writings at all times as useful academic reference materials in which their followers are looking out for. As such, it stands to benefit readers to have posted pieces of work to include, where possible, critical comments, citations and approaches that will surely elevate presentation skills and scholarship in the field of knowledge sharing, writing and publishing.   

Since a long time I have had it in my mind to contact you, to say thank you for your wonderful studies, essays and books about Igbo medicine, herbalists in Nigeria, migration, insanity and many publications more. Your papers influenced me and my research deeply. I studied social anthropology and history of religion in Freiburg/Germany and I am married to an Igbo man from Anambra state. After the birth of our second child I planned to write my PhD thesis about Igbo medicine, migration and the German healthcare system. I realised early that there seems to be much confusion in the Igbo studies and high quality studies about Igbo medicine are rare. My confusion ended when I found your “Introduction to Igbo Medicine.” Nothing opened the research field better for me than your writings. Thank you very much for that! I hope you will continue to research, write and publish in this field.

I am very happy about your use of case studies. When I read your writings it’s like you send me on a journey and you allow me to participate because of all the details and your insider view knowledge. The information you give allows me to speak with my informants on a deep level, to get their trust and respect. The son of a Dibïa owu mmiri even told me that I know more about Igbo medicine than he does. Before I found your essays I often heard that we, “the white” people, will never understand the Igbo and especially not the Igbo medicine.

Later I had to change the topic of my PhD thesis, after my old supervisor retired and no other Professor in South Germany seemed to be able to support a PhD thesis in Medical Anthropology. To be accepted in a Medical Anthropology Research Group in Swiss I had to change the topic to: “Ageing, Gender and Migration”. It’s still about Igbo in Germany, about the impact of their migration on the situation of their parents back home and about how the immigrants in Germany plan for their own old age and death/burial.

The same story started again. I read a lot. Engaged in many studies, as well as did summaries, hundreds of interviews, comparing or just mix findings from interviews with Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo informants without giving useful background information about the culture, the situation of the interview and so on. It is very hard not to become confused by reading that and at the same time to be(come) “naïve for ethnographic interviews”. I think you also read the essay from Aboderin (2004) about the weak theoretical framework that builds the basics of the most studies about ageing in African societies. These theories of cause influenced me too, even when I had the strong feeling that they are not so much as useful as being a basic to start to collect data. I realised, that they made me blind instead of giving me a guideline for my research.

And then your writings “The Rite of Ori na Ndu OLD-AGE TRADITION AND REPRESENTATION IN IGBO LIFE” and “The audacity of Ibi Ebibi rite of passage and cremation burial rite” stood out for me and both had the same effect on me like before your essays about Igbo medicine. They gave me a look at special cases and encouraged me again to start to speak with key informants even about difficult things like human rights and Igbo widows.

Your essays helped me even to change the way of how I speak with my two supervisors. Of course, I must know the existing theories, but in the area of my research we need basic information, as well as deep empirical data. We don’t know enough to start to create theories at all and the most important thing I have to do with the existing theories (especially with the modernisation and ageing theory) seem to be the reflection of their influence on me, to free me from it before I go to the field.    

In December 2011, we had a writing workshop and every PhD student had to present a text with an extraordinary good writing style, which influenced his/her writing skills the most. I did not reach the level of writing down the findings of being extraordinarily good. I am still opening the field and collecting data, because of that I decided to present a paper you wrote (The Rite of Ori na Ndu…), because your writings influenced my access to the field mostly. Well even when I didn’t get the point of the homework, the PhD students and Professors have been very impressed, especially one from Tanzania. He was very happy about the way you addressed your own people – the Igbo of Nigeria. And all have been happy to get this professional looking insight from an insider.

I think that your texts are very important; also because they are free in the internet and even poor students who cannot afford to pay for articles and books from anywhere in the world can read them. And it seems that on www.kwenu.com like in other homepages from Igbo and Nigerians, the selecting pressure is less tedious and critically demanding than in guidelines for the scientific journals, so in the internet it seems to be more possible to help research students and scholars with your publications as you have been doing. During the writing workshop we became very sad, that we have to throw away so many important data when we want to write our PhD thesis and so on with regard to peferred published academic sources of material and all that. And I always had in mind to appreciate the useful possibility that the internet offers, which you have helped to stress to scholarship when somebody wants to publish his/her research without the limitation of journals, editors, professors, reviewers and so on. The problem as it should be noted is that not all internet published articles care to include list of references used for the article or essay.      

I think in the end we all just want to create useful writings and most of your writings have been very useful for me and others. But even when the limitations for internet publications might be less strict than in journals, we are responsible for them and we shouldn’t make the mistake to become careless in terms of overlooking critical aspects about our writings, even when we only sign them with our first name.

I write to you this, because a few days ago I was looking for your essay “The audacity of Ibi Ebibi rite…” in the internet again. I wanted to mention it as an example in one of my questions in the interviews about ideas about burial ceremonies and their hypothetical influence on the life after death. During my research in the internet I found another piece of work, which happened to be your reply to Amara in Linda Ikeji’s blog, published in both www.chatafrik.com and www.amoizemagazine.com. Your lectures at www.udemy.com and article postings in www.nigeriavillagesqure.com and www.igbomedicine.webs.com among others are also noted. At first, I thought that somebody used your name to publish that reply to Amara's opinionated and counselling essay but it was indeed you who wrote that piece with the obvious perspective it offered without citation on any study related to women and hygiene acts. I can understand that it was a reply which was not intended to be uniquely academic so to say. Yet its effect on readers like me turned out to be obvious too.

I am sorry to say that, but as a post graduate woman with interest in medicine, and one who grew up in a country with a very good medical (both, herbal traditional and biomedical!) and hygiene system I must ask you why you didn’t even try to mention any academic study in your comment about female hygiene in this reply article? I enjoyed so many of your writings but this one really shocked me a bit given this omission or overlook of which researchers like me would like to gain from the posting of the article. It is surely not because of the topic per se but because of the way you dealt with it as a mere reply without grounding it with your usual in-depth focus and citations. As a scholar that is being read widely, readers take everything you write or comment on seriously. My concern is that I had expected some deep insight on how African women, particularly Nigerian and Igbo women clean their private parts as a cultural issue of concern. This did not come out except with reference to using water and soap. I want to criticize or rather explain this by commenting from my German societal background and also as a healthcare worker - immersed in intercultural and inter-generational space and reality.

The right technique to clean the female private part is very important, for example, to prevent bladder infection. There are surely many studies about it, in Germany it is trivial or rather a minor issue to know that, doctors, midwives, everybody knows and can teach it that to be clean as a female is a duty; girls know it from very young age onwards that cleaning the female private is a responsibility and therefore culturally endorsed. It is also trivial to know that applying too much soap and hygiene is dangerous especially in the vagina! It therefore takes caution to do it rightly and it must be taught and supervised until it is properly mastered. Growing up to be a lady involves mastering the feminine and hygiene chores.  

You know what the problem is with antibiotics and so-called antiseptic or medicated soaps common to African people? They kill bacteria no matter if these bacteria are useful and important for the body or if they are dangerous. Soap does the same and it changes/destroys the natural protection system of the skin. In the female vagina there lives important bacteria that truly and functionally protects the uterus and the vagina against parasites – and, moreover, dangerous bacteria like candida albicans. When candida albicans grow in the vagina, it is often a sign for too much hygiene instead of being a sign for not enough hygiene. Candida albicans smell, and like other illnesses it can cause an extraordinary smelling vagina. A physician should be consulted in those cases! During my first pregnancy, my biomedical doctor told me, that the vagina produces more of this normal liquid thing for protection. She said that many women try to wash that inside away; as such she warns them not to do that, not even with pure water (in the inside!), because that will kill the important and useful bacteria or simply wash them away. When that occurs, the situation can allow the dangerous bacteria to grow. Also it can cause a bakterielle Vaginose (German medical word for infection of the vagina). This infection can also have effect on a baby when the baby comes out naturally. Then white things grow on the baby’s tongue. The baby will have pain when the baby drinks and it can even infect the mother’s breast. This can be the end of breastfeeding. I spoke about that with a woman from Akan speaking group from Ghana, and she said that when babies in Ghana have that condition, the mothers use tomato juice against it… in Germany we have other drugs against it.

By the way when a pregnant woman in Germany is ill (of anything) and must take antibiotics the doctor will prescribe her also a drug to put into the vagina or so. In that drug are living useful bacteria. The antibiotics might kill the natural living, useful, bacteria in the vagina and the other drug replaces the new one. So we really should not wash them away, they are expensive! It is here anthropology is important to teach the rudiments of natural care as viewed and practiced by societies such as the Igbo and mine (German).

It seems to be just a small or private thing, but it is not. Apparently, it must be noted that during many centuries men from so many societies, continents, including their religions did not become tired of trying to improve that women are inferior to men. Very often you can find the argument that the female body is impure (e. g. because of menstrual blood) and this argument was used to keep women away from high positions (religious and political), to give them less rights, even to treat them like slaves...and indeed as supports to men rather than their equals as human beings.

I made several interviews with Igbo men in Germany. Some of them are very sure that women are inferior to men and that men always have the right to beat women and children. It is much so that women and children will have respect for their men (what type of respect should that be? Or do we talk about fear?). In the German law we have equal rights for men, women, and children, handicapped and nearly also for homosexuals… (but I am very sorry the human rights for asylum seekers especially for Nigerians are limited (I fight to change that). In the “real” society we nearly reached that goal of gender equality. The Gender inequality index in Nigeria tells another story about men and women in Nigeria. Some of the Igbo men who mentioned that they ran away from Nigeria because, as it were, the human rights situation could not be guaranteed for them in Nigeria, seem to be sure that in their opinion – that they can beat women – and in the very logic they hold,  they conclude that it is better than the German law, better than the human rights for women. In a fight they can use all…even a transformational essays such as your essays can be arrogated by Igbo men to achieve their ends such as accepting it could be cultural for the male practices to hit a woman’s soul to become disciplined; and by extension in printed version also her body such as keeping the regime of personal hygiene as the men would want them to be. By the way: how do you want us to pamper those types of men?  In Germany, the police will bring them to court. They will go to jail or they will be deported.

Sorry, I always interpreted your writings in that way that we have to look carefully and without prejudice on the tradition but also should try to use the best achievements of the modern technique, science and ethics to create the best possible future for all humans, animals and for the nature.
Your published article and comments on homosexuality had been well focused on. Indeed, you have been so careful when you talked about human rights and homosexuality, why can’t you be careful in the same way when you write about women and their rights and hygiene? This is where I have failed to understand why your reply to Amara in the said blog got me thinking  - hence my writing to point out how I strongly feel we can work out a clearer focus on vaginal hygiene from the perspective of medical anthropology.

I think it is simply a question of the missing reflection of a cultural determinate idea about the body. I mean it seems that you did not even try to write like a Professional Medical Anthropologist by treating the issue as a social network reply. You just wrote about it to relate how some (Igbo) men want their women to be. In so doing, the reply to Amara on the question of “why you are not married” missed out offering that deeper anthropological analysis needed for research and policy on women hygiene and comfortable sexual relationships.

When I started my research about Igbo culture, I came across an old book (sorry I forgot the name and the author) that described a ceremony where Igbo boys shouted to Igbo girls ritually that the girls have dirty and smelling vagina. I discussed that with my husband and he told me that, where he comes from in Africa, many women have extra long fingernails and they use it to scratch and clean the inside of their vagina as may be needed. He also told me that they wash their body and their private part many times every day. I think we don’t need to speak here about the higher risk to get HIV when the fingernails get to launch a wound on the skin in the vagina or am I wrong on this? Again, is it very important to speak even with young kids in Nigeria about that? HIV! You should understand why I am sad! 

There is much to say about sexuality and hygiene; I do suggest that we can approach this more from an academic, self reflected level when critical writers like you want us to take it seriously. We can have different opinions about findings, we can discuss about theories, we can focus on different studies and interpret them differently, but I think it is not fair, despite posting replies like the one I am stressing here, not to help your readers by carefully avoiding mentioning absolutely no academic medical study that would have been useful when you speak about women, culture, sex and female hygiene. You have influence with your unique writings to direct research interests in this field.

For me, I need to say it, your reply to Amara in Linda Ikeji’s blog – when I try to see it with my “anthropological eyes” and not just with the eyes of a woman – is very interesting, it is a part of a gender puzzle in that way. That means that for me as a German anthropologist it seems to be that some Igbo men and boys like to tell their women and girls in a very open and public way that their vagina smells – this suggests a perspective of how the male gender perceive and ascribe purity, pollution and danger to their females. (I never had the possibility to taste the vagina of an Igbo woman and I never saw medical reports about it. However, the immense attention and worry for female hygiene also suggests that there should be something special about the biology of Igbo women like other women across cultures. So I just have to take it as the idea or experience of several Igbo men/boys have of their gender opposites). What does that say about the hygiene and gender ideas in the society, about the relationship between men and women, does it have effect on the situation of Igbo widows (sarcasm!) on its own?

If deeper cultural studies would let us have a look on hygiene at all, I think it will be good anthropological approach to share the intercultural focus. In Germany, medical doctors, nurses and midwives will tell one to use only water and organic plant oil to clean and care for new born babies. They will tell you to throw away aggressive chemicals used to clean the flat/house, because it can cause allergy to the baby and a little bit of the chemicals in the stomach of a baby/child is enough to kill the baby/child. Better to use organic soap less is sometimes more. I am sure that most Igbo are very clean people. But I am also sure that many cleaning substances are dangerous for the health. There are many substances in soaps that can cause cancer like PEGs. Perfumes have much alcohol and when you use it for your baby you risk the baby’s life because the alcohol can enter the body through the young and vulnerable skin. There is much need to teach the people about those things and I am sure that you can do that very well, by approaching this dimension on an academic level. We are responsible for our writings given the influence, unique and exploratory researchers like you weigh on readers, human rights, gender issues and policy dynamics.

By the way I am just expanding my education in the field to become a geriatric nursing professional as well as I hope to gain and apply deep cultural issues and sensitivities related to helping the elderly. We wash the private part of those people who cannot do that alone everyday. Sometimes we clean them many times a day, but only with warm water or in some cases with special medical cleaning lotion that contains no soap. Contrary to the notion that washing the private part with soap and water before serving it to men by women should be understood more from what common scientific practices also prescribe. Somebody who would try to clean inside the vagina of a woman without the authorised order and assistance of a medical doctor would lose his/her job. There is more to it than replying Amara in the website post and it is important to use this essay to draw close attention of African women, and indeed Igbo women on the practice of hygiene related to private parts.

It is very important for me to write you about that reply to the question and comment on Amara's submission, because your other writings have been so important for me, for my research and also for other researchers and for policy on gender and human rights regarding sex and use of chemicals, namely soap on keeping the female private parts neat for men. Thank you for all your great writings.

Many greetings from Germany,

Yours sincerely,

Mirjam Rülke.

The Igbo of Nigeria and its religious worship like that of other African societies has been well documented, debated, dramatized and controverted in many respects beginning with the missionary and colonial encounters. Eact time I read or try to make sense of Igbo worship, I seem to pinch myself given the way in which religious pundits portary ancestor worship in Africa, particularly Igbo society. What is worshippingg God or Chukwu for the Igbo? How do the Igbo celebrate chukwu in worship? I have culled the following article from www.kwenu.com where I first attempted to relate Igbo chukwu worship as something we need to rethink. 

I begin this submission by asking the following questions: at what types of situation and for what purposes do the Igbo worship Chukwu, God, or pray and with what symbols of their cultural spirit and heritage? Why can’t Igbo religious experts come out bold and tell us that Igbo religion is, and can best be called, Igbo Chukwu Worship and is simply one and the same thing as any other like Christianity? Christianity we understand is a religion named after Christ, the ‘Son God,’ and therefore it represents the followers of Christ just like the Igbo are the followers of Chukwu, God; thus, ‘Community God.’

 Continuing to categorize and write about the Igbo Chukwu Worship as it was long written down in missionary history in Africa and transmitted by the missionaries and colonialists as ‘Ancestor Worship’ is but a marginal frame of the deep-seated semantics and significance of Igbo religious expansive cultural lifestyle, change, and continuity. Times have changed for a new description of what Igbo worship needs to refer to – experientially, symbolically, thoughtfully, and pragmatically. I make bold to call for a new pragmatic reflection – and let us call our religion what we know it for – hence Igbo Chukwu Worship, not Igbo Ancestor worship which connotes colonial subjectivity.

Referring to the ancestor by the Igbo when in a prayer session or incantation moment was misunderstood by the missionary-colonial authorities to mean worshiping the dead ancestors. The Igbo do not worship the dead ancestors; rather they call up the virtues of known ancestral forces that constitute part of their cosmology of life and world. Ancestors are not called up without Chukwu, Obasi di n’elu (the almighty God above). In other words, ancestors are just a frame of their descent relationship and of kinship alliances in the making of their thought and reality meaningful. The actual worship is rooted to God, Chukwu the biggest being they can imagine, experience, refer to, call upon, submit to, and know well and are passionate about. Praying to Chukwu for the Igbo and by the Igbo is an act of empowerment and psychological survival pattern of life that is so much culturally endured. Chukwu or Chi is a language of everyday life renewal with and hope in God. And the zeal and passion with which the Igbo govern their lives, culture, and society with “Chukwu Worship” need not be undermined with the colonial notion of ancestor worship ascribed to the Igbo in particular and Africa as a whole. 

As Katharine Slattery equally notes:

“There is a strong Igbo belief that the spirits of one's ancestors keep a constant watch over you. The living show appreciation for the dead and pray to them for future well being. It is against tribal law to speak badly of a spirit. Those ancestors who lived well, died in socially approved ways, and were given correct burial rites, live in one of the worlds of the dead, which mirror the worlds of the living. They are periodically reincarnated among the living and are given the name ndiichie – the returners. Those who died bad deaths and lack correct burial rites cannot return to the world of the living, or enter that of the dead. They wander homeless, expressing their grief by causing harm among the living.” (When identified as troubling will be tied up in sacrifice of last resting).

Further, Katharine Slattery accounts with some modification here that:

Religion was regarded with great seriousness, and this can be seen in their attitudes to sacrifices, which were not of the token kind. Religious taboos, especially those surrounding priests and titled men, involved a great deal of asceticism. The Igbo expected in their prayers and sacrifices, blessings such as long, healthy, and prosperous lives, and especially children, who were considered the greatest blessing of all. The desire to offer the most precious sacrifice of all led to human sacrifice …, as even Christ was for repentance, remission, change and continuity? – in order to provide a retinue for the dead man in life to come. There was no shrine in form of Temple or Cathedral to Chukwu, but there was one symbolized in every family regarded as Chi. Sacrifices were made directly to Chi, but Chukwu was conceived as the ultimate receiver of all sacrifices made to the minor deities. {italics in citation are mine}.

We can argue up to any length on this call, but the bottom line is that the Igbo of Nigeria worship Chukwu and deserve to have their religious life correctly identified and labeled on their own cultural terms and realities. This is even more important now the Igbo have become an inevitable global migration story and the opportunities, challenges, and braves in which living with the ‘other’ provides in a challenging world.     

This essay is primarily offered to show the significance of Igbo Chukwu worship in a culture of diversity. As the Igbo Cultural Association of Calgary celebrates Igbo Day, 2010; it becomes obvious to reflect on how colonialism and missionalism helped Igbo religious worship to embrace change and continuity. Around Calgary and other regions in Canada, new titled churches led by the Igbo are emerging and helping the Igbo spirit and religiosity in many ways. In a changing world, the Igbo have shown resilience, industry, perseverance, political reunion, economic adaptation, religious energy, and hope in pursuit of identity and kinship as a group.

The essay draws from the work of Prof. Emmanuel Onwu’s article “Igbo Traditional Religion and Christianity” (March, 2009). It also brings out a personal interpretation being a complementary perspective with respect to diversity, culture change, and adaptation. Onwu’s work which draws from Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), outlines Igbo religion and Christianity in order to understand them. We follow the same context to examine cultural heritage, while taking note that each of the religions – Igbo Chukwu worship and Christianity – is a cultural paradigm of worshipping the supreme God, or Chukwu in Igbo parlance; and that encounters between cultures are necessarily bound to create both continuity and change. The essence of the submission is therefore to give insight on the meaning and dynamics of the things that hold a culture together and how those things play out in re-mobilizing and moving on in a time of critical need by a group. It calls for how we can transmit the values of culture change and continuity through Igbo Cultural Day celebrations in Calgary and elsewhere.

According to Onwu, Achebe gives a written description of the impact of the encounter between Igbo indigenous religion and Christianity when Obierika says: “How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? White man, oyibo, is agbara, is very clever. He came quietly and peacefully with his religion for ritual emancipation on his “human rights lips” and his “diplomatic, economic, and political bag” at his back for business. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (1958: 123-125).

In 2005, I argued elsewhere that Achebe’s uses of the words “knife” and “things” that held us together be viewed not in the literal sense, but as deeply symbolic, metaphoric comments on the meaning of Igbo culture, community, logic of the other, and worship. Thus, Achebe asserts here that the Igbo culture and sense of solidarity and communalism (“things”) were punctured by a new cultural force they were not prepared to take seriously or engage with. Thus, “falling apart” means to withdraw and recoup prior to returning and belonging. Prof. Pantaleon Iroegbu once took a similar philosophical and theological view when he advanced that Igbo philosophy and metaphysics are all about belongingness, being qua being, existentialism, adaptation, and survival. In his the Kpim of Personality: Treatise on the Human Person (2000:125-126), he further illustrated this as ‘relational liberty’ which he called okeakwalam – a liberty of belongingness for all and argues that the promotion of one is the promotion of others and vice versa. Igbo Chukwu worship espouses this.

With Chukwu, the Igbo affirm that "onye kwe, chi ya ekwe" (when someone agrees, his god agrees too). The change brought about due to the missionary confrontation to open the Igbo up to other cultural realities of worshiping God was not meant for one person who needed it the most but for all Igbo at that historical moment of colonial cultural encounter. We need to see that in Things Fall Apart, the Igbo were recreated (chi ekegherie ha) through the most needy adherents so they could face the new world. As they say, “seeing is in believing”; the Igbo of that moment saw and believed in the changing dimensions of their powerful culture. It is in this way that the Igbo of Nigeria enjoy migration as a means of discovering and being discovered through cultural hospitality, learning and acquiring skills, and gathering experiences that result in development at home and wherever they may sojourn. Thus, “things fall apart,” can be interpreted as an account of a historic moment of intercultural change, adaptation, and continuity.

We celebrate Igbo culture for many reasons, including the representation of Igbo Chukwu worship. Kolanut is still used to pray reverently to Chukwu, and it is still divinized and given the aura of God, peace, and hospitality as we share life, knowledge, and resources with our neighbours. We also pray with palmwine to bless the good and curse the evil. Throughout Africa and in Diaspora, the Igbo are mainly devout Christians who take worship so seriously that their neighbours often wonder how they can combine their zeal for entrepreneurship with their religiosity. So, in describing the cultural encounter in Things Fall Apart as a puncturing of the things that held the Igbo together, Achebe was prophetic in capturing the re-creation—both through change and continuity—of a society through the power of cultural contact. In the sharing of cultural knowledge and strategies for success, development expands when cultures interact and blend. When the Igbo worship Chukwu in their own terms, Christianity does not do otherwise on the contrary. Rather, the trouble with cultural encounters is that they force one and another into a new set of relationships for adjustments called change, a change that will become inevitable due to need by the followers.

In his writing on traditional Igbo religion, Prof. Emmanuel Onwu tells us that Achebe’s words echo the sentiments expressed by an Igbo elder as he reflected on how the new religion of Christianity evolved in terms of winning converts, dividing members of the clan, and helping the Igbo acquire new life, knowledge, and intercultural sensitivity. It is certainly true that, from the moment of experiencing the new culture, things would never be the same for the Igbo. And this is so because, in reality, there is no such thing as a “fixed” culture—no culture, no matter how long standing, will remain the same upon encounter with another. So does foreign religion divide or unite? And how exactly did the missionary manage to win some of the Igbo over to Christianity?

Achebe points out that Nneka wasted no time joining the Christian church when she became pregnant because she had been losing her children through ogbanje (a repeating spirit phenomenon). And outcasts in Mbanta flocked the church in pursuit of freedom from evil spirits and oppression. Also, there were the cases of Nwoye, who was shocked when twins were “thrown away” in the forest to die, and Ikemefuna, who was killed for sacrifice by his father, Okonkwo. Onwu also reminds us that, when the Igbo of the time gave over the evil forests and shrines of their various gods to Christian missionaries, nothing happened, contrary to common expectations. And, while the Igbo hung on to those failed shrines and gods and did not completely imbibe Christianity, the perception was that those gods were dead (but were they?), and the people became convinced that the white man’s God was very powerful. The priestess of Agbala in Umuofia spitefully called the Christians the excrement of the clan and the 'new faith' a mad dog that had come to eat it up (Achebe, 1958:101). And, indeed, religion migrates in these circumstances and liberates, that is “eats up” or feeds the most needy, producing both change and continuity.

At the base of  Igbo culture, when the colonists and missionaries wanted the Igbo to surrender their children for education, the Igbo chiefs refused for fear of mortifying their heritage of Igboness. But the Igbo no longer make noise about colonial incursions because they have embraced the change it offered as an opportunity to expand their cultural values and horizons. This does not mean they did not resist—in fact, they did so much longer than any other group in Africa with the exception of the Zulu. The point is, however, that, as soon as the Igbo discovered the benefits of changing taboos via new religious belief and migration, they embraced it as useful change and heritage. There is no wonder that, both in Nigeria and around the world, the Igbo have proven to be shrewdly adaptable and present with a high religious and cultural spirit.

The advent of Christianity in Igboland meant the introduction of a Christian worldview. And Christianity was inherited as a form of achievement that “abolished slave trade and slavery, human sacrifices and twin killing, introduced education, built hospitals and charity homes” (Onwu 2005). Furthermore, Christianity decreased superstition and increased knowledge that brought about improved human welfare and reshaped the Igbo’s faith and worldview. Nevertheless, Igbo indigenous religion is still alive, a heritage we cannot ignore. The Igbo call on Chukwu everyday – as they eat, play, work, pray, face childbirth, illness, challenges, and even as they make love!

The early missionaries saw themselves as social and religious reformers whose aim was to condemn African religious and social beliefs and practices and replace them with their own. But, where they had hoped to produce a “new person” born into a new faith, what actually happened is that the “new person” became a split personality—one who could neither totally return to the old nor become firmly rooted in the new. As such, the Igbo continue to seek the African face of God in the Chukwu they know, love, and worship. The English language sound of “God” is not as moving as the Igbo language tone of “Chukwu.” Think it about!

One Igbo in Achebe's Things Fall Apart asks the missionary this: “If we leave our gods and follow your god, who will protect us from the anger of our Chi – our dumped god?” In response, the missionary angrily says: “Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm. They are pieces of wood and stone.” Are they? There is a misinterpretation, in other words, some ethnocentric feeling here. The Igbo know well that deities and spirit forces are part of their everyday lives. Igbo Christianity combines local forces, ecological and ancestor resources to seek solutions and find protection in the face of need. This is considered cultural and a responsibility. The Igbo fought against the European missionary intrusion, discovered it was inevitable, and embraced the culture shock. But images of Chukwu and God are woven into the common symbols of a culture, and the Igbo continue to showcase enduring worship or ritual symbols such as ofo, ogu, agwu and ikenga. Let us face it, Igbo worship is strong and a heritage of life and spirit of powerful relationship with God, Chukwu. 

To conclude, it is worth examining this question: are cultures equal? Has Christianity more culture than traditional Igbo Chukwu worship? From the point of view of culture theory and application, all cultures are equal but different. A society such as the Igbo upholds a culture for its ability and capacity to respond to their needs. Therefore, a religion is equal to every other as long as it renders to the users what they consider important in managing their ethical universe. The Christian Cultural Science that views Christianity as superior to Igbo Chukwu religion is erroneous. In healing, a healer looks to and embraces forces and resources that provide what is needed—so it is with religion. That is the essence of migration, diffusion, and adaptation. Instances drawn from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart exemplify this. What experts need to do is to reposition the concept of change and diversity as a means by which the Igbo embraced the expansion and change that resulted in a coalescing of Christianity and traditional religion. Diversity is all there to understanding the Igbo and their system of worship in their challenged and changing world for inclusion, opportunity, and security. The considered values of a culture are not only captured in terms used but also in the transmission of the change that follows through worship and celebration. Nwachukwu and Nwagbara are names in Igbo of the same identity of person in God and Chukwu in Igbo thought and reality.

Selected References Consulted

Chinua Achebe, 1958. London: Heinemann.

Katharine Slattery, August, 15, 2001. “Religion and the Igbo People”. Imperial Archive Project. In Odinani, www.kwenu.com.  Retrieved August 17, 2010.

Onwu, Nlenanya, Emmanuel, 2009 & 2010. “Igbo Traditional Religion and Christianity”. Retrieved June 5, 2010.  Codwit News: www.codewit.com/igbo.../igbo-traditional-religion-and-christianity.html

Pantaleon Iroegbu, 2000. Kpim of Personality: Treatise on the Human Person. Owerri, Nigeria: Eustel Publications.

Pantaleon Iroegbu, 1995. Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy. Owerri, Nigeria: International Universities Press Ltd.

Patrick Iroegbu, 2010. Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria. Indiana, USA: Lulu Publishing Enterprises (www.lulu.com)

Buti Tlhagale, 2010. “Bringing the African Culture into the Church”. Retrieved August 4, 2010. In Odinani – www.kwenu.com.

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Note

Elsewhere, an abridged two-page copy of this essay/speech was presented in the event brochure of Igbo Day 2010 of the Igbo Cultural Association of Calgary, Canada (ICAC). The event was overwhelmingly attended and participants were heavily entertained with rich Igbo cultural kolanut ceremony, Igbo kwenu lifestyle, speeches, appreciations, awards, dance performances – men, women, children, including the exciting Bende War Dance Troupe, led by Don Odoemenam. Huge fashion display, rich Igbo cuisine and new yam festival all blended with the awesome occasion. To my own estimation, over 800 people were in attendance for the celebration of the rich cultural heritage of the Igbo people of Nigeria held on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at Thorncliff Community Center, 5600, Centre Street North, Calgary, Alberta Canada. I hope by reading this piece you will appreciate the critical insight Igbo Chukwu Worship can be to a celebrating community of their Igbo Day, 2010. Congrats to ICAC on a successful Igbo Day and New Yam Festival outing in a complex global city.    

Ojukwu, Fighter of Ethnic Injustice and Nigerian Development Dream 

Mr. President and Board, Members of Igbo Cultural Association of Edmonton (ICAE), Nigerian community and friends in Edmonton, I want to thank you especially for your time and presence to grace this unique memorial service in honour of General Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. As a keynote speaker, my duty is to unlock the theme and relate it to the issue of our gathering today. It is with both the key and remarkable note of recognition and appreciation that I open the memorial service for Dim Ojukwu to be well deserved from our part here in Edmonton of Canada.

Truly, here is a man, Dim Ojukwu who was born in Zungeru of Niger State of Northern Nigeria about 78 years ago. He emerged into a top rate millionaire family, his father a transport guru and greatest investor of his time. Ojukwu subsequently did not allow himself to be carried away by the wealth and fame of his father. He studied and carved out an identity for himself to change his people and society for the better. This he did by becoming a district community organizer for liberation from poverty and injustice. Dim Ojukwu schooled in Lagos and England and graduated with first class in modern history at Oxford University. He played sports of all kinds and won coveted awards in the midst of discrimination and sometimes with controversy.

After his studies at Oxford, he returned to Nigeria, and as I said already, served as a district officer in Aba and Udi. A year later, he joined Nigerian army even at a low recruit level against the wishes of his influential father – as the first Nigerian with a First Class MA Degree. If Ojukwu had not been called up by destiny (akaraka ya), he would have ended up being a teacher in a university or any college of the time. Truly, gifted students like him were quickly sent to schools to teach – to produce and transmit knowledge skills. Moreso, with the wealth of his father, he could have continued to work for an academic Ph.D in any choice university in the world. But that was not his calling. I am sure in England and having been a student of modern history, he knew what sacrifice and honor can mean from military culture and society with regard to nation building. He knew that Nigeria needed a strong and educated army to work on Nigerian unity and development. He gave Nigeria that glimpse of purpose and action. He mattered to the army. And indeed, before, during and after the Nigerian Biafran civil war in which he was a key person, Ojukwu remained relevant anywhere and any time. He never let his people down. He stood by them and for them. In doing so, he shaped for himself an excellent place in history of which we have gathered here to share for inspiration and to offer him our tributes. Dim Ojukwu should best be described as an agent of transformation for Nigerian history. Up until his death on Nov. 26 2011, and his burial and mourning, on March 2, 2012, Ojukwu stayed fighting and promoting the cause of Nigerian unity. Three times, he contested to be president and that shows how genuine and historic he was to the cause of promoting Nigeria. In 1982 when he was granted full pardon to return home, after 13 years in exile in Ivory Coast, he was given a hero’s welcome. Other incidents reflect how much Dim Ojukwu was loved for giving his all to his people as a hero. There was a story testified by his wife Queen Bianca Ojukwu of how market sheds were pulled out to let Ojukwu pass when traffic hold up caught with his journey in one inland Igbo area in the 1990s. No one in Nigerian history had been offered such a perception to secure and respect him as a top Odegwu nwoke or a high sacred kinsman.   

We are here to salute – a man of the people; one who chose to work selflessly in defense of his people. The job of a soldier is what? I ask you. To govern or to defend the vulnerable population, provide them with security and to say to them, I am here as your soldier to fight for you, to die to make sure you live. So Ojukwu we know did that when it became necessary in the full context of UN’s convention and human rights principles of survival and existence.

He is the man we have gathered tonight to celebrate; one who understood Nigeria deeply with ideals bothering on giving to the other. Late Prof. Pantaleon once framed it this way: Ojukwu was a helper and defender of justice for the people who were denied, not a hinderer. History has spoken, seeing him as a man who lived beyond his time. Ojukwu’s likes were hanged when they proved so prophetic and challenging to the powers that be. But he became a security risk. Touch Ojukwu, you will touch disaster, an ethnic tsunami-earthquake.

Let me quickly mention that at the end of Nigerian civil war, General Gowon pronounced the war as a “no victor, no vanquished” situation. What does that mean? Social scientists, war scholars and historians have interpreted the sagacity of that pronouncement in diverse ways. I will say one; it highlighted the national indulgence to be Nigeria. If one side be made to feel or look defeated, conquered, restrained and controlled, Nigeria will fail to be. And by realizing that the Igbo were visibly present in every village of Nigeria, it made no sense to think of defeating such a group. How can one think so? That would have resulted to defeating the nation in itself of which was of the Igbo in every community? To think of defeat therefore would have meant to shoot irresponsibly Nigeria on its own political and development feet. It was sure to say that General Gowon listened to counsel in that frame. The Igbo were not defeated; but were redirected by the cause of history to return to be Nigeria. Immediately the Igbo re-migrated and re-occupied Nigeria as it is today. It signified that Ojukwu knew it all as a just war to save lives being wasted in the North of Nigeria in the 1960s. Saving lives and community of people to have a life is a good thing. Any governor in Nigeria today who cannot save lives and properties in his state should be impeached, jailed or even killed to give peace and development a chance. It is strongly cultural to restore lives and dignity of a cultural community.

From General Ojukwu, a four starred general, buried and mourned by the whole Nigerian world, in particular the Igbo, Nigeria has experienced the sacrifices necessary to forge a common unity. Ojukwu modeled a dream for Nigeria. His Ahiara dream speech comparable with that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of America also in the 1960s shared similar wisdom and dream of libration from injustice, inclusion, security and opportunity. Dim Ojukwu handed to Nigeria the Ahiara Declaration of 1969 to surge to unity and development.

Ladies and gentlemen, all Nigerians, friends and Canadians, we have gathered to give honour to whom it is fully due. We have come to celebrate the life and times of an outstanding, visionary, pragmatic and collective and distinguished Igbo and Nigerian ICON, Dim Ojukwu. What Nigeria is today, was an outcome of Ojukwu’s making through the circumstances of the 1960s ethnic injustices. Ojukwu is a symbol of life and culture, a national and intergenerational hero. Dim Ojukwu received the best funeral in history. On’est jamais vu. He did because he satisfied many things through his personhood and ideals. Ojukwu was a business mogul like his own father whom I encountered through my cousin in Lagos in the shipping business. An orator, philosopher, historian, politician, family man, ardent Catholic, soldier, people’s leader, chief, Eze Igbo gburu gburu.

When Ikemba, Emeka Ojukwu poured out his feelings as shown below, he was letting us know that forever he bonded with his people and committed his life, opportunities and resources for Ndigbo in every village and town in Nigeria to get secured in weaving Nigerian unity together. He declared:  

“I Have Paid My Dues.’ For you (Ndigbo), I abandoned all ease and embraced pain. For you, I impoverished myself to buy your protection. For you, I walked every battlefront to assure your welfare. For you. I stood when every other person crouched. For you. I endured 13 years of bitter exile. For you. I endured 10 months of maximum security prison. For you I embraced priestly poverty. For you I continue to struggle…What I have said is not harsh, it is only the unclad truth and it reflects only the intensity of the love I harbor for my people." --Ojukwu

I invite all of you to open up and embrace history in Ojukwu and Ojukwu in history. A mega figure of culture. His place is assured and we truly stand to learn and endure. Na mbo ka-obidoro; O si n’akara aka ya. Thank you all for your time. May his gallant soul rest in Peace. Adieu Dim Ojukwu.

Keynote Speech Delivered on Saturday, March 3, at St. Edmund’s Catholic Parish Hall, Edmonton, Canada by Dr. Patrick Iroegbu to the Igbo Cultural Association of Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

Overture

Large misconceptions surround the notion of juju in society and its form of cultural resource in Nigeria. How can juju medicine and culture be explained and applied to development? This article explores the dimensions in the cultural context of transformation. I am therefore not submitting this updated chapter of a book culled from the Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria (2010) for a palliative fun. I am doing so for insight to be gained through ethnographic informative research. Moreover, it is to help to offer awareness and open debates of what this form of cultural resource is all about and why. Despite many incursions and stereotypes around the juju phenomenon, there is for sure a relative poor grasping of the cultural and ethical philosophy involved. However, the belief and practice of juju life has continued to form not only part of the active culture of African ways of therapeutics, but also a central part of African political cultural and social life.

As simple as I can introduce it, let me say that, when the term “juju” is associated with African medical healing and political systems it is quickly feared to be heard in any form of discussion. Yet by the application of “juju” to economic life, it even becomes more confusing to be placed. But why should it be so? In other words, if, as it is often viewed, juju, otumokpo, ija, oluala (literally meaning uprooting or knock-down magical enchantment) is a name, it is such that is assumed no one should mention it with ease or carry his head and shoulders high about it? That means, it is a stigma in some quarters that we know.

At a time when constructionist view of African culture for pejoration and denigration was common place, we had seemed strangely reticent to allow the rubbishing of our cultural essentialisms. The poser here is - what is this juju, otumokpo, ija, oluola all about that no one should mention it with ease?By holding that notion, it implies that there is some supernatural power people address to fortify themselves of which no other should know about. It also bothers on the fact that neither talk around it be openly shared nor references to it consumed in public discourse. Such traditional medicines loaded with secrets for action; need to be explained as core part of political and economic powers to overwhelm others. In some measure and sensibility, juju power is a diplomatic power gained through medicinal and ritual art exploration so to say. As such, it is an empowering medicine in political civilization that modernity needs to grapple with as one of the ritual mechanisms of coping with life and survival issues.

Besides, common folklore has it in use such as when populist singers like the late Fela Kuti talks about Afro-Juju Music and Arts. Sir Shina Peters’ My Life as Obey’s and Chief Richardson of America’s Juju music beats are all big names in the promotion of Juju music art. Juju in this sense depicts common beliefs in traditional folklores and musical thrills and values of a group. But when it is applied to medicine and magic the meaning becomes something else. One needs to mention that the word juju in itself is not Igbo. It is a borrowed term from neighbouring ethnic Yoruba group and alike in West African area, including theCaribbean. The term “voodoo” in a folkloric dimension is another applicable coinage being used in many other areas.

As construction and deconstruction have served as the most recent moving intellectual captivations, they challenge the idea of a single meaning of reality and a single truth. As such, why do Nigerians and more particularly politicians use ija, juju? Of what effect and significance is juju tactics in achieving some ends? What are the consequences of failure? What voice has religion placed on the culture of juju since the colonial and missionization era? Why is juju not disappearing? Is it a science of what? These are some mind boiling questions with which many of us have been confronted when the issue of African medicine is raised. Many of us have felt some discomfort to explain to our western friends what juju really means. In this essay, I will take on the issue and attempt to reflect the meaning of juju in the forces of life, creating and sustaining relationship with others. Doing so is aimed to help in understanding the science of this so-called “dark art” or “black magic” that belongs to the realm of inexplicable science. I posit whether juju medicine is, indeed, inexplicable as it has been alleged or that we have failed on our part to study and write the juju medical science tradition down like other sciences?

I became somewhat passionate about this question since once overhearing a tête-a-tête talk on the meaning of juju between a Nigerian and a White gentleman in a shopping mall-bookshop recently. What did I hear? As soon as the word “juju” turned over into my ear, I became particularly curious and eventually drew nearer to listen to what this excited Nigerian on the subject matter of juju offered as a response. The Nigerian was asked to explain what juju means and why do Nigerians believe in and practice juju medicine? As I have said, I was nearby gazing at books on the shelf but was at the same time really listening to the ongoing discussion on the juju question. Reply offered was — “it is all this rubbish traditional medicine based on oracles and spirits.” Fine reply, he must have considered that response. I mean I was typically not disappointed although his reply was short of much and uncovered much. The catch wording, otherwise, the telling phrase there is this — “it is all this rubbish... medical bla bla bla.” So, I have been wondering what the sense in this rubbishness entails. Since this crucial experience of a turning point in nature to me, I have considered it necessary to re-invent and re-enact that reply and expand what the explanation of juju question and answer he gave amounted to. The very Nigerian I am referring to will not be alone in replying to questions related to African medicine and other issues our most western friends commonly ask about. There is massive ignorance and reduced pride in African traditional beliefs and practices, particularly among the intensively disoriented Nigerians in the Diaspora. It is in that urge to know and deepen our understanding of Nigerian complex issues such as juju phenomenon that I am partly focusing on the topic here. In fact, I did not plan to write this piece but for a few moments before speaking to my publisher about my manuscript, it became obviously irresistible and prompting to address the critical knowledge development involved. As an attempt in the first place, it does not fully represent what a more detailed fieldwork should account for it across Nigerian cultures and politics of healing and social bodying and ritual embodiments.

To set this connection of meaning, I draw inspiration from experiences and readings, for instance, Benedict Anderson’s (1972)1 exploration of Javanese ideologies of spiritual potency, which he terms power. This form of power goes beyond ordinary worldly power as it is oracularly empowered energy. It is a motivated central force and mystical inner strength that enables an individual to control him- or herself, other people, and the environment without the use of somewhat physical, political, or material force. Juju tactics as I will emphasize is enhanced by self-discipline and prescribed rules of social order too. The more self-control one has the more tactical to master superhuman forces and the wills of human beings. In other words, juju diplomacy and tactics though complex are engaged with in order to hold fast some uncertain situations of primary and secondary extrasensory and material demands of life in society.

What Some Others Are Commenting

According to “Love To Know Free Online Encyclopedia”, ‘juju’ is a West African word held by some authorities to be a corruption of Mandingo “gru-gru”, a charm. It is more generally believed to have been adapted by the Mandingos directly from “FT.JOUJOU”, a toy or plaything. The word, ‘juju’ as used by Europeans on the Guinea Coast, was originally applied to the objects which it was supposed the Negroes worshipped, and was transferred from the objects themselves to the spirits or gods who dwelt in them, and finally to the whole religious beliefs of the West Africans. It is currently used in each of these senses, and more loosely to indicate all the manners and customs of the Negroes of the Guinea Coast, particularly the power of interdiction exercised in the name of spirits. Fetishism (objects of sacred power) and taboo are set around the moral chores of using juju in its own applicable religious context.

In August 2003, our Nigerianworld.com columnist Tokunbo Ogunbiyi discussed the topic of “Juju” in Nigerian politics. This productive writer did not only make known the importance and consequences of using juju in playing politics but also expressed that the juju question be made an issue in the constitutional discourse. As Tokunbo Ogunbiyi argued, the Anambra Saga of Dr. Chris Ngige has highlighted the significance of juju, otumokpo, or for English speakers — what the colonist and missionaries labelled as “non-white magic” otherwise “black magic” –as an aspect of Nigerian politics, which has not been properly considered. In the rituals and initiations for allegiance toward becoming the Governor of Anambra Sate, Dr. Chris Ngige was required by his political godfather — Chief Chris Uba to swear at a shrine an oath of allegiance. That he did as we have been told in related agonies of the governor in the political crisis of the state. Mr. Tokunbo Ogunbiyi has helped narrate and reinforce cases of politicians and contexts in Nigeria where juju has been a source of instrument of power, including related cases of masquerading as are quite common in Nigeria and other African societies. I recall strongly the juju or ogwu or magical and ritualclashes, which Chief Jim Nwobodo had with Chief C.C. Onoh on who should occupy the State House at Enugu during the NPP and NPN election struggle in the 1980s. So, cases of political juju and magical fame in life have been common.

Informants pointed out that associates of one Imo State popular politician Senator Arthur N. was noted to bring in a powerful oracle or juju with a healer in his approach for swearing to keep and to enforce the loyalty of his political supporters and followers during campaigns in the local polity. The same was ferociously mentioned of the late House Rep. Member, Hon. Maurice Ibekwe of Okwele during his campaign tour and negotiations with the local leaders and populist individuals in Mbano area. The modern religious temples and Pentecostalist entrepreneurs were figured out by informants as being participants and patronizers to juju in administering healing, economic, social and religious needs of their adherents.

I need not detain readers here with such details as Tokunbo Ogunbiyi has already provided what I will call a general introduction to the phenomenon of juju medicine in Nigerian political culture. For his details please see — Tokunbo Ogunbiyi in www.nigeriaworld.com (Thursday, August 7, 2003).2 By and large, every village or city across Igboland and Nigeria, depict cases of magical feats by its great healers, powerful medicine men and women in the horizon. These endogenous ritual artists and experts characterize their abilities with the hope to change fortunes, misfortunes of different dimensions. In their everyday cause and effect of reality, juju devices are employed to demonstrate power and influence, including the capacity to intermingle with the human and extrahuman domain of forces of this world and that world in response to effects and needs in a desired context.   

Understanding the Juju Question

What is juju? What does this term mean in both literal and professional sense? Is it the same thing as magic? How can a Nigerian explain juju to an outsider? While it is possible to relate the idea of scanning sticks, cards, and various electronic devices to expose the inside contents of bags and so on, to tap secret information and sometimes power, such devices can be said to be oracular as they have features of a wand or so to say juju. Such devices perceive, detect and embolden a sense of search, questioning and caution. It empowers someone at work to take note of items and follow security or whatever meaning is to be put in force for order and safety. Likewise, a juju object is hoped to offer maximum sensitivity to issues affecting its users. In any case, wands or juju objects are of various types. There are sticks, metals or irons, bangles, rings, pebbles, clay and animal bones and so on. A wand is any piece of item with magical or juju effects. It is anything in solid or liquid form considered useable for the purpose of empowering desired effects. Presently, ancient wands used by the notables are now souvenirs and important decorating items in museums and private houses of collectors. A wand cannot be a wand unless it is encoded with a significant tested effect to excel in matters of one’s interest. As the plate or image (see source- This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )³ here shows,Britain alike many other countries of the world has rich history of magic and variety of magical wands. Inscription on the source image is as follows:

Key[1] replaced Human Headed Plate showing Magic Wand Shop inBritain

                             Source: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The question now is to depict whether a magic wand is a juju or not? If it is, why is it sounding bizarre to hear it or chuckle and guffaw when it is mentioned as an African identity? Have those developed countries with history of magic and or juju, stayed out of touch with its value? How can one explain and position juju then in the modern sense? Quickly also, what we have not placed in context is the fact that the use of drugs associated with human hormone functioning appear to have replaced the use of known magic chores in sports and politics and other forms of social activity where juju power may have been applied explicitly. To say that culture is not static but dynamic reflects clearly the changing pattern of modern rituals where, for example, instead of applying charms to sports, athletes nowadays engage in drugs to fulfill the same mission ritual would have accomplished in an endogenous ritual imagination and practice of energy empowerment. Interestingly, every outcome of scientific innovation or technology has always been an adapted local knowledge that feeds the amber of progress and resort. 

Informants spoke variously about locking up, that is, ikpochi ihe, madu, agbara – meaning tying up intention, wish, fortune, misfortune, effect, disaster, failure, non-progress, illness, – and such can be attained symbolically using ritual or juju keys. (Fieldwork Note photo from a masquerade healer). See image of ritual keys in the main text: Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria (2010).

A Bit of Interaction

Let me start by referring to an experience I shared with a Caucasian not too long ago. In 2001, I had the opportunity to visit a German friend who once lived in Ghanafor four years in a course of international development project. We kind of got connected through a discussion related to ethnotherapies. This friend was so much fascinated in the topic, although not without some surprising bitter experience in Ghana. As a lady in her early forties, and as a para-psychologist, who had just finished training in Englandon spiritual medicine, I came wondering what a German like this devoted spiritual-practitioner was gaining by spending her resources on the knowledge of African, Asian and North American Indian medicines. Apart from the fact that I was fairly knowledgeable about Igbo and other African ethnomedicines, I was amazed at how she discussed the significance of growing western therapies based on African traditional medical models. If instead of spirit, something else of a name has to modernize it. Energy medicine she sometimes called it is a maximization of indigenous African ways of using the spirit to heal. This involves becoming more aware of the extraordinary world that lies behind one’s eyes, a sense of symbolic sight. There is need for an internal method of absorbing the credentials of extra-normal information to make the invisible realm of life real to people and their social and political health. There is no marvel why in 1996 the New York Times Best-Seller remarked of Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing by Caroline Myss (I996)4 as both an important revelation and major call to awakening. This is true as it should be noted that often healers cannot teach, and teachers cannot heal; but some people can do both.

This book frankly discusses energy medicine and insists that each time we make a shift toward symbolic awareness; we positively influence our energy and biological systems. We also contribute positive energy to the collective body of life — the global whole, a spiritual maturation, and as spiritual homeopathy (Myss 1996:109). In other words, seen symbolically our life crises tell us that we need to break free of beliefs — voluntary or imposed processes that no longer serve our personal development (ibid: 111). Moreover, as healers view people as duplicates of divine power and seeing their problems within a spiritual framework accelerates their healing process because it adds a dimension of meaning and purpose to their crisis. So it is essential to consider that our spirits, our energy, and our personal power are all one and the same (Myss 1996:64). All of this shows that we need to understand what gives people and their culture power. And healing from any illness and or assuming any political authority that will affect the lives of others is facilitated by power symbols and one’s physical relationship to those symbols, and also heeding any messages one’s body and intuitions are sending the one about them. Living with and knowing what one’s spirit informs and directs is helpful and mostly juju tactics facilitates this interconnection between the body and spirit. As such, in juju or magic medicine there is something tenable.

But in order to understand and do that which is tenable, my discussant emphasized, it has to be given a name and process that is written down for rationality and approvability for licensing and practice. She further argued that in Africa, juju medicine is so much down played by the state authorities, and consequently treated as if it is unimportant. On the contrary, it is a rich source of medical knowledge and healing and should be vigorously studied and understood. The World Health Organization has since long resolved and advised countries where indigenous medicine is flourishing should integrate it with the State health care biomedical system (WHO 1978).5 As we discussed further, it was highlighted that in the modern world, a science will never be considered a science until it is written and tested. But that of African juju medicine is already tested and of course with its problems and potentialities which continuous research will ameliorate. And the greatest problem juju medicine is facing is that it is largely unwritten; only thrives in orality, which is not sufficient in today’s so-called scientific process. Deeply spiritual and religious, the African juju medicine is yet to have a place in modern state governments and administration of health care resources.

By juju medicine, I refer therefore to the philosophical belief that African traditional medicine is widely based on the use of Shrines, Oracular and Deital sites in mobilizing the field forces of the water, forest and the air/sky. Thus it relates to interacting with extrahuman forces and with such power symbols that are so sacred and only understood and applied by healers and clients in closed palliative ritual contexts for protection, power and other related purposes. In many other societies, juju medicine is also called voodoo and more properly speaking folk medicine. Juju medicine is grossly misconceived to be mainly demonic, evil, and dark in intention. It is either way – positive or negative – in its very intention. Depending onto which side of the coin a seeker for the medicine wants his or her intention directed, a juju therapist will go into work to manipulate — in so-called scientific way, the process. That is why jujufication is rendered positively or negatively accordingly. In modern terms, that will mean good and bad effects of medical formulation and administration.

Beliefs in sorcery — in which material things are used; and witchcraft — in which spiritual force is entailed, are well known in their forms and practices as they have content and contexts across societies. Juju medicine is part of the whole sequence of causing and curing, providing and protecting, as well as promoting fortune and disciplining misfortune and its agents. It is concerned with psychological and auto-agentic support for excelling in fame and fostering social bonds and wealth accumulation. It is all that needs to be particularly encoded for a particular purpose. It is expressed in religion, social, economic and political activities. So, it is a cultural edifice of thought and action geared towards any urging meaning and purpose as much as its seekers and suppliers prize it. Here, I mean that clients and healers in the juju medical businesses have both intrinsic and palliative and invigorating values in them. Sometimes people use the word talisman, double crosser, and flyer to describe or allude to juju things. Talisman if it is, I have to explain it in relationship with what is today called to be medical bracelets against rheumatism or arthritis and so also on related social and political urgings.

Is Life Sealed or Activated in Juju Medicine?

In juju medicine, it is constantly believed that life is sealed and at the end of destruction. This is not true. As healers and clients told me, juju is just one side of the medical view referring to strong and amazing or what can properly be said, mystifying and influential. It is a high point of wonder and a class of achievement to reach that level of mobilizing and manipulating the forest, water and land forces. Juju is a direct involvement encalled into medical strength to achieve results of pronounced implications – positive and negative. For example, with juju medicine, a politician can influence the electorate to win their votes and on this note it is said to be on the gainful end for the politician. Where the same medical concoction or ritual enchantment is used to destabilize a political opponent, make him or her sick, inarticulate, have loss of mind or insane, and incapable of doing what is required to win an election, it is viewed as outwitting and harmful on the one hand. On the other hand, it is concluded as a show of one having more capability than the other to make things happen. Yet a politician knows well as Ogunbiyi (2003) noted that to come public one has to face direct and indirect forces of which includes belief in the practice and use of juju ability. It is right to say that a common sense notion of juju is that it is a theory of thought and action to face human and extrahuman challenges in life. As it is primarily psychological, it is real and comes to terms with issues at which a culture deals with its political and social contexts. By and large, a politician is expected to act strong and neutralize whatever is suspected to stop his or her capabilities and competitiveness. As much as in other forms of competition, such as trading or doing business, wrestling, and war; juju power is resorted to so as to embolden and activate one’s capacity to attain and achieve results as closely and assuredly as possible. In a way, drug use rather than ritual in which juju comes into play would achieve some measure of the sort.

Nonetheless, since the coming of new life with western education, seeking employment opportunities, and promotions, applying the idiom of juju has not been an uncommon observation and experience to Nigerians. Pentecostalism or churchification (Ofoaro’s term)⁶ of lives, politics and the economy as a whole has added to the diversity of the juju theory, meaning and politics of crossing of traditional healing boundaries.

Let me point out a little further that the issue of Pentecostalism in Nigeriaas it is across Africa, is a continuity of a cross-border politics of planting foreign beliefs and lives into African and Nigerian lives. The flourishing of Pentecostalism and subsequently the churchification of houses and public centres in Nigeriais a real trend of Disaporism aimed to plant intercultural churches as a diversion points to act out economic and political masochism or suffering of a sort. A large number of PentecostalTemplesor so-called altars are usually prepared, jujufied and ritualized to win and sustain adherents. And what will one call this? Religious persons of different levels approach healers for variety of problems and they receive such helps as many times as they are wanted. And what will one also call this? I think it is high time we started coming out real to explain the meaning of juju as a cultural way of addressing divergent needs and stresses of ancient and modern life. It is an approach considered social and cultural provided by the forces of Nigerian ecological and ethnomedical geography. The distribution of oracles and deities should not surprise us that they are such cultural givens and realities we have to house-train, cope and live with. Research should help expose to what further uses these forces have to be put in health care delivery in Nigeria. As recently, the University of Lagos’ Botanical Department announced to run a diploma program by 2004 academic session to train and use traditional healers in studying and understanding medicinal plants and related resources in Nigeria. I have viewed such development as an important thinking and deciding in the context of juju medical exploration and understanding through its practitioners. I did contribute an article lauding the move and suggested some areas of concern the university authorities should address in order to ensure that healers themselves are not misplaced or de-professionalized from their indigenousness and authenticity in the realm of ethnomedical conception, initiations, mobilizations and practices (see Iroegbu, www.gamii.com, Nov. 13, 2003).7

Let me clearly and simply state it that juju medicine is the use of spirits, oracles, deities and all forms of extrahuman forces to heal. Both, it is spiritual and materially based. It also encompasses issues such as causing within others desired opportunities, fortune, progress, as well as misfortune and restoring the same and this depends on the primary purpose of the seeker. Practitioners know well what to do when a client solicits for juju medicine as one must come to equity with clean hands. The consequence of seeking for juju medicine without being clean, or to have not wronged one’s intended victim if it is the case will be nemesissical, that is, have retributive effect. So one has to be sure, and to take oath of pity for oneself, in the event of such retributive development occurring.

As I have shown elsewhere (Iroegbu, http://www.gamji.com/archive24.htm, www. lagos forum.com, June 5. 2OO3)8cultural symbols such as juju symbols or also to be literally referred as magic-wands make sense for its users and in various contexts in which they are applied. The idea of magic or medicine of bamboozling effect is strong in the thinking of people. People think magic and therefore once juju is mentioned it is magic; it is something, medicine or symbols or wands with some puzzling influence. Incantations are poured out sometimes silently and sometimes loudly at the time of waving, wading or pushing across magical paraphernalia prepared for situated purposes. That juju works to certain extents means much to its users and it is important to understand that like any other form of medicine — direct or symbolic, juju medicine aims to bring about release from tension and anxiety, as well as foster courage to move on to achieve one’s goal. It adopts both spatial and functional roles in a social context.

Another way to explain juju concept is to refer to it as essentially metaphoric and symbolic. By that I mean how the word juju embodies a sequence of medical beliefs, knowledge and practice and thus display some sort of homophobic social control. Women and men control one another with gendered phobic behaviour also defined by juju devices and references to its symbols and representations. Juju as one must say it is a referent to power and ability to call onto and use of extraordinary power means. It is medical recipe that calls to someone’s special interest to act on something, another person or a group. However, there is a sense of that ‘other’ power means in it. That specifically implies for the Nigerian and African that there is extraordinary power embedded in culture one can use in moments of uncertainty. This has been cultural as opposed to modern police and security agents guarding persons and property today. It is symbolic, reachable and variously appropriated to achieve or launch decisive actions and draw out special interest effects. Physical ability is one way to hit someone and deal with him or her. Another way is to resort to extraordinary power, that is, use of juju force — implying help of interactional effects of herbs, roots, animals and spirits to intervene for someone. This indicates that the use of force is not necessarily a physical force. It can be invisible, here being called juju energy or power as opposed to a physical force, for example, police or military capacity. We should also not forget that Christian religion teaches us to rely on God to do our prayers, much as other forms of religious faith. In whichever way a person is persuaded to domesticate any of the appealing forces in order to attain a goal is a use of force in the context of Nigerian concept of social juju medicine. This is also seeking for extraordinary divine force. Humans and spirits live and work together and juju explanatory theory brings this knowledge and practice and inter-worldly forces real to our fields of existence. Cultures therefore harvest their ethnomedical resources and apply them in ways that serve their needs and psychology of daily life.

The Off-beat of Religion and Juju Politics

I set out to situate a somewhat religious connection of juju phenomenon to the politics of fortification and survival in a hostile world. I will also describe the context of 419 phenomenon and jujufication. The culture of juju and 419ing is such a serious issue today that it deserves some real in-depth study to understand how 419 practitioners prepare themselves from the cultural grassroots before going urban and international to mesmerize sources of financing and thereby become capital moguls, twisters, solicitor generals, wizards and nightmares with amazingly accumulated wealth.

As I have this discussed, a conclusion will be drawn bringing the main issues conversed together. Hopefully, an overall picture of what juju signifies will make sense in demonstrating that people do not just do what is not useful to them, and becoming a candidate of 4l9ing is so easily attractive because of the big gaming involved. The returns have been in thousands and millions of dollars each time an unsuspecting investor is trapped.

In using juju in Nigerian life and political culture, including religious fields as the case may be, its seekers manifest good reasons beyond the action for lack of employment and promising career opportunities for survival inNigeria. It also depicts most underlying Nigerian reasons for greedy lives established by the past successive military regimes and the ongoing corrupt politicians and institutional public office administrators whose ethical responsibilities for generations to come have been questionable.

Religion and ‘Juju’ Normativity

          A magico-religious belief in the realm of leadership is not only central to politics and power but also basic to Nigerian political culture and history. This is also significant across cultures of the world, such as American Indians and Asians. Without mincing words, as I have noted in some other contributions, Sir James Frazer launched in 1922 a monumental twelve-volume work he called, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Frazer pointed out magic as an art which assumes that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of a spiritual or personal agency. The conception of magic or juju is identical to modern science. Fundamentally, the underlying system of magic is faith, implicit but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature, which today translates to culture.

Insights on magic and religion other than the one given by Sir Frazer also exist. For example, there is the Bronislaw Malinowski’s 1974 Magic, Science and Religion, and the 1965 Evans-Pritchard’s Theories of Primitive Religion. Easily found in Nigerian literary works such as Chinua Achebe’s (1958) Things Fall Apart, as well as Ben Okri’s The Famished Road of 1991, including, moreover, ethnological descriptions of societies in Nigeria and Africa are useful references to oracles, spirits, and juju or voodoo constructions touching on issues and aspects of daily life.

As it were, Malinowski who worked among the Trobriand Islanders in Australiadiscerned the functional explanations of magic in times of danger, anxiety and disorder, which people may face in the transactions of their daily lives and needed emotional support to sustain their faith. He noted that mourning magical rites, for example, serve to reintegrate the group’s shaken solidarity on losing a member, and thus the re-establishment of the morale of the community. According to Sir Frazer’s own verification, there are two basic principles underlying the practice of magic. As explained, the first principle of magic stands to be the rule of ‘similar’ whereby like produces like. Thus a juju therapist or so-called magician wanding some forces together to produce effect, will have to imitate the effect (i.e., use the effigy or personal identity or belonging or material effect) of a person or victim he wants to produce or reproduce. He called this form of magic homeopathic or imitative magic. Sir Frazer is saying that a healer is thrown at work to achieve effects in line with what is crafted into the object and subject of the medical, political and social circumstance with all enchanted forces acting as a whole in semblance to one another.

The second principle of juju or magic to which Sir Frazer called contagious magic translating jujufied sensitivity is a form of magic whose underlying theory is that things which had once been in contact with each other continue to act on each at a distance. The common sense and implication here is someone’s part or belonging, such as hair, finger nails, clothing, and so on; can apparently through some focused spell be acted upon to affect the one. In some instances psychologists talk about telepathy, and seeing vision or being deluded as psychiatrists would say, as well as in dreaming to replicate such behaviours of the ‘acting upon effect.’ All these critically make sense when cause and effect are twisted, produced and reproduced on a set of some usually and unusually adapted goals and principles or rules or taboos of life relationships with others and the environmental health resources to harm or to heal.

Following evolutionary theory of knowledge, the age of magic was replaced by the age of religion and subsequently by the age of science, or rational and provable application of knowledge. All of these are but theories of thought. Of course, one can argue that science has come to reject the two previous modes of thought in order to position itself in good place. The most reasonable way to say this is that all knowledge systems are still blending with and reinforcing all the others. None has apparently disappeared from the scene of health and social understanding of causes and their effects in society. It is generally being promoted that science has supplanted its predecessors, so also it is likely to be replaced in future by another form of thought. And what that may be, we cannot imagine it as it is still resting in the preconscious realm. I must have been in one way or another sharing in this curiosity. Let me add quickly that the essence of globalization as we are arguing the concept today is to make the far nearer and the nearer farer across cultures through information technology and moving of people, capital and their cultures. This is also evident in ethnomedicines and the so-called juju phenomenon and its transformations.

As I observed Dr. Chidi Osuagwu at Owerri (October 2-4, 2003) present the world of healers at an international conference on “Harvesting African indigenous resources and knowledge”, at Whelan Research Academyas well as participating through paper contributions in some of the world ethnotherapies such as the one organized each year at the University of Munchen, Germany, the issue of juju and healers across societies do equivocally and multivocally highlight points of interest by its users in political and ordinary economic terms of life and social survival. I am more or less persuaded that to think boldly about juju theory and harvesting what it has to offer will be something good to think about and taken up as a challenge by scholars with interdisciplinary drive. To think of the concept of juju is also to relate it to the tradition of religious importance for community mobilization and cohesion. In other words, there is a need to rethink the so-called African sense of magical skills in ways in which it can formulate both a thought and symbol of political and social importance in the contemporary world.

While ‘magic’ is the embodiment of a whole range of thought about how to frustrate and deconstruct some difficult situations and circumstances in life as well as to foster dimensions of courage, it is aimed to primarily turn uncertainty to sureness, weak into strength, lack into sensibility, illusion into reality all of which will promote surprising result, one of which is overwhelming. To get at the act of juju, there must be symbolic object involved at the same time. One can therefore state that a magic in itself plays out through a ‘wand’ of a stick, rod, staff, baton, bangle, ring, or some other related ritual objects of power. Put together, a magic-wand refers to a power tool transformed into leadership. Its impact is encompassed as jujufication of self-concept of desire and distinction. It is a visible symbol associated with some extrahuman forces to perform influential acts and achievements. All of these depict a range of sensibilities people have shown to mean and refer to as juju concept in day to day life challenging issues.

       It is also interesting to note that in Arochukwu of Abia state, the story of the The Long Juju of Arochukwu was known and stood as a revered deity during the colonial age. The deity remains relevant to many Igbo communities up until today. Deity, as explained in many instances is said to be a god or goddess from which people draw their spiritual and supernatural strength. Most deities are kept in an isolated groove area; a site that provides them the needed sacredness for the purpose of mystical value.

          Going by history, the worshippers of the Long Juju deity began to worship the deity before the arrival of colonial masters in Igboland in 1857. By 1900, the British Government had taken over Igboland from the Royal Niger Company (RNC) and the era of administration with the Christian missions had been set in motion. The British Government gained a foothold by using force in the interior but not without opposition from native groups like the Arochukwu, whose Long Juju, the government thought, was responsible for slave trade and failure to introduce English cultural terms and currency. The attack on the Aro, the destruction of the juju shrine and hanging of some of the chiefs united the entire Igbo nation against the colonialists and initiated one of the longest wars the British government ever fought with the people ofWest Africa.

          The Long Juju of Arochukwu was a powerful and prominent oracle in Igboland. It was one of the Igbos’ greatest oracles whose shrine later became the court of appeal throughout Igboland. To it, the most serious internal and inter-group strife were often referred. Some of the oracles were believed to control fertility and barrenness and people appealed to these oracles to answer problems of bareness in women. Cases were also taken to these oracles for judgment with the common cases in Igboland before 1600 being land disputes, theft and murder. These oracles were believed to be independent, trusted, unbiased, unprejudiced and impartial. Matters given judgment by powerful and reputed oracles are final and therefore deemed resolved – and no one has authority to question the decision of the oracle once it is taken. Moreover, the oracles were also used for economic and political purposes. They are believed to be suppliers of wealth and security of the same in the society. Condemned people in society were sold into slavery via the pathway of the Long Juju of Arochukwu. In general, those who see political power as a matter to outwit the other resort to juju terms in the past and modern times, and in peace time and war moment for some supernatural power and wizardry to command the forces of the events with their will to make things materialize when it is dreadfully wanted.   

Juju and 419 Phenomenon

I take up the issue of 419 phenomenon here again to provide more details to the issue of juju in the harbour of life of the operators. Yet, I do not intend to focus on the genesis of 4l9ing in itself and how it functions more than it is relevant to our analysis. All the same, it is important to take note that by the mid 1980s and more significantly, through the 1990s, 4l9ing has become a pattern of political dealing and business life. It did take a strong hold in Nigeria leading to international alarm to watch out the noveaux riche fromNigeria. Both 419 and OBT (obtaining by tricks) came into being as a consequence of the military conjunctures and exploitation on the economy ofNigeria and beyond. The figure 419 was helpless for change as it was derived from the number in the Nigerian penal code for the laws relating to fraud (cf. Smith 2001). It also concerned with obtaining by dubious ways and has since become a common business language of hitting people and ripping off businesses of large sums of money by unsuspecting individuals and groups through ritualized and dubious phone calls, prospecting and soliciting letters promising heavy percentage of benefits from amounts left in banks by dead depositors or so as a means of roping people into the scam.

More important for our understanding is to, however, mention the fundamental connection the practice of 419ing has with juju fortification that makes its operators most often successful. As one commentator to this series indicated, “there is no doubt these 4l9ers are ‘strongly jujufied’ otherwise how can they be all that making it all the time, and instead of the home and international war on the 419 factor bringing their activities down, it is intensifying; more and more people are joining” (Bonaventure Onyekpere from Belgium – once commented this during a phone conversation as I was writing this article). So in its basic capacity, it is much more than people ordinarily perceive it and to describe how jujufactor is part of the business is an important exercise. Any research focusing on this area of knowing can help inform the public and policy makers towards fighting this characteristic and puzzling business development that puts everyone at risk. In particular, the banking sector inNigeria is in shambles and it is hard to trust any official these days. This is moreso since even the office of the presidency and most public affair personalities and agencies are commonly used in 4l9ing by its super-masters. There is nothing on earth, informants asserted; the so-called 419 persons cannot do to achieve their goals. More clearly, in terms of forging enabling documents, letters, voice tones, etc., sometimes employing powerful healers to ritualize and empower them add to helping them to go to the extreme to get a deal. Impersonation of important, influential and well connected figures in society by the 419 persons equally became a critical part of their trading skill and networking approach.

Although juju users in different realms of social and economic manners have been historical and cultural, but never a time has it been so internationalized than in the era of 419ers within which Nigerians are currently being stigmatized due to the excessive hot business of the 419 industry, with its Headquarters (HQrs) currently discovered in Holland. A most recent Canadian TV (CTV) video castings (1 & 2) have illustrated the unusual twists 4l9ing has crosscut in the business of even unsuspecting common co-operative independent farmers.

As I have stated already, Nigerians have become more familiar with the 419 phenomenon, and the international business community has increasingly equally become aware in one way or the other of the systemic manners of its operating strategic nuances. To say the most as opposed to the least, it is yet unwritten to show how the juju ritual aspects promote the business of 4l9ing. Apparently when some people talk about juju occurrence, and even as it relates to 4l9 issue, they do so in pronged tongues. Some tend to pretend as if it is an old science and art in Nigeria or that it is something no one should talk about. Others view juju culture as rubbish as we have noted before. This being true for some, it is not so for many others who find it as a process to advance their cause in life and in society. However, there is much discomfort in discussing juju concept in public. And that is what western religion has made us believe. I am also more particularly disturbed when I hear people discuss it only in regard to demonism as if it is the only aspect healers are interested in or it is demons that they work with and serve mostly. This is biased and quite erroneous. I am not arguing that there are no problems associated with the excessive and abusive use of the art of juju medicine due to greed for wealth and political pride and results.

Writing in American Ethnologist (Vol. 28, No. 4, 2001)10, Daniel Jordan Smith typified the true issue of 419 in Nigeria in an Owerri episode in Imo State involving child kidnapping, ritual killing, and fast wealth. The one time Otokoto Hotel and Dimako episodic saga all in Owerri city terribly coincided with the era of popular ritual killings, fast wealth, the law enforcement, insecurity and judicial enquiries (Imo State Gov. 1997).11 Smith further argued that the Owerri stories of ritual killings and riots that went with it in protest against the 419 noveaux riche are expressions of Nigerian’s constructions and understandings of the changing nature of inequality in the maintenance of political power in contemporary Nigeria (Smith 2001: 804). In addition, Smith asserts that, “many of Owerri’s young elite were alleged to have achieved their wealth through “419.” In Nigeria, persons who accumulate fast wealth are popularly known as 419 persons (ndi 419, ndi 4 – plural, onye 419, onye 4 – singular in Igbo language all of which mean those who amass wealth in an overwhelming way – ndi ofuju aku na uba, ndi ofuju akpa). Four-one-nine persons are classically thought to have garnered their riches by conning foreigners and wealthy Nigerians in highly involved financial scams. In addition, 419 in itself is recognized inNigeria as a part of the lucrative and risky drug business within the illegal realm of scamming people. It also stood contrary to, and replicates, the military usurp of political power at another level of the societal decay and loss of faith in the institutional political order, and therefore manifests the hopeless axis of inequality, poverty and oppressive and repressive regime in the country.

Historians and anthropologists have in many ways portrayed the modernity of witchcraft and inequality emphasizing the phenomenon of occult beliefs and practices (Offiong 1991; Geschiere et al 1998).12 They also pertain to moral discourses in contradiction to kinship peace, production and reproduction, economy and society. The 419 noveaux riche are assigned to be witches who craft paths to wealth in a terrible violence. Smith’s article pointed out stories of how people are helped to become rich through juju priests or experts; he called juju man being a sorcerer or witch doctor (see p. 818). Instances where those who sought this way of using a local juju man to get rich emerged in ritual victims being made to vomit money for the seeker and participant. There was also the case of juju involvement where people were turned into vultures to cross boundaries of normality to sacrifice human sense, eat dirts and bodies to seek power and wealth thereby violating moral economy rooted in kinship, patron-clientism and reciprocal obligation of all sorts (cf. Smith 2001:820).

A fieldwork on the phenomenon of Nigerian ethnomedicine with reference to the southeast indicates to me that Nigerian business travelers, namely the internationally unfamed 4I9ers subvert boundaries and even ruined the lives of most healers. Cases of healers hauled to overseas with their tools to continue to fan the successes of these 4l9ers are in some instances shocking as a number of healers I interviewed established. Healers who crashed from their professional ethics do not indicate that the forces behind the juju therapeutic service are unaware of when to co-operate and when to retract. A great number of such healers influenced by their clients with a promise of a better location in a Whiteman’s land did not last long before it is realized that tradition is a great thing.

I point out here that the basis of 4l9ing has strong link with juju rituals and practices as has already been noted by Smith and others. And a real discussion to address the issue of 419 must not overlook this area of invisible power import in defrauding others. What this is showing is that clients direct the use of juju according to their interests at any moment in place positively or negatively. The implication is that it will not be right to argue that juju phenomenon is something outrageous. Not so really. Like any other technology or device, it is cultural device users apply to perceived interests and strategies to achieve them. This is like arguing the left and right hand-side implications of medical therapeutics.

For example, a common visit to healers’ shrines will tell a lot about how many international travelling passports are lodged for ritualization to clear off dangers on the road, sea and airways for the so-called 4l9ers. To apply juju force is believed to remove uncertainties and foster their faith. It is also said to place them at sharp edges of excelling and succeeding in the diplomacy surrounding their transactions. They claim that they will be viewed as genuine sorts in whatever strategies and devices that they can adopt in order to win business and make deep margins (iku deal).

The essence of jujufication is rationalizing success and means. In the same way, there are myths and realities in juju belief and practice in matters concerning marriage, love and friendship, the police, the law and judiciary in conflict resolutions, particularly land disputes. We are often also trailed with the myth and reality of secret societies and occultism, such as Ogboni Fraternity, Rosicrucian Order, Pirates, and Brotherhood of all varying economic, political and social dimensions. Tertiary institutions in Nigeria have for long been troubled by the episodes of violence of occultism. This, it is stressed, a jujufication of power and blood matters are often mixed up confusedly.

The 419 phenomenon is real with juju force and the operators understand quite well how it works for them and the social security it offers them regarding the hot-seat of business violence they fashion on others. In order to understand the deep layer of the force of 4I9ing, it is recommended that behind these fraud entrepreneurs, there is strong mobilization of juju culture versus the state power of the police and crime experts both at home and in diaspora.

Summary and Conclusion

This paper has attempted to articulate the meaning and representations of juju concept in Nigeria in the political life, business and social health context. It made it clear that jujufication is not new and has been called different names in different cultures, such as ‘white magic’ in Britain and ‘black magic’ in Africa, including ‘voodoo’ as its compliment in the Caribbean region.

          We have focused on common impressions that people have had about juju culture. It also illustrated the general notion people draw when the issue of juju is referred to. It argued that there are other realities as it showed and it outlined some of them. We moreover, furthered the diverse reality of juju and explained interactions related to juju phenomenon beyond Nigeria. Juju was defined as a sequence of ritual actions that are culturally edified, which address peoples needs in social, cultural, religious, economic and political scenarios of day to day lives.

We, furthermore, understood that juju theory deals with psychological needs facing uncertainties. Dr. Malinowski and Sir Frazer discussed the role of magic or juju medicine as approaches cultures adopt to address uncertain situations, and thereby become stable and skilful in conducting daily life demands. Juju medicine is viewed to be re-studied and placed in modern context away from colonial and missionary stereotypification and categorizations. It is hoped that it will come along to balancing both of its sides in handling crisis and transacting justice, politics, social and economic responsibilities as it mattered to its makers and users.

An important observation is that juju action is strongly behind the 419 phenomenon and there is need not to ignore this aspect in addressing the dangers and opportunities of corruption through 419 forces. All in all, juju is metaphoric and a conceptual ritual, religious and health theory in its own right. It is such a practice that embodies a larger context of forms of pursuing fortune, misfortune, providing, sustaining, healing and achieving goals in a set out society, both in Nigerian political culture and elsewhere.

While it may seem odd for some, it is clearer to realize that juju also serves religious institutions to foster in their own contexts. It is central idiom of culture that penetrates all aspects of life. Let me then make bold to conclude that juju is a reality in the past and present political life and culture of Nigerian society, irrespective of the fact that a number of people can argue against it or are seemingly ignorant of the centrality and continuity of juju force in the politics of everyday lives in the contemporary socio-political challenges of surviving, being well, excelling or not, and secured in every array of life it may be put, especially in political life struggles and transient accumulations.

Across the ethnic societies in Nigeria in particular and Africa as a whole, juju adopts different specific names but its ritual intuition and foray is nonetheless the same and so it fits as a common culture experienced and observed by both practitioner, clients and observers. But one question that remains unanswered is this. Why is juju flourishing despite all the noises of intensive Pentecostalism and Churchirization of Nigeria and elsewhere? Is it not suggestive that cultures that persist with time and circumstances be better understood and given realistic policy for re-evaluation and development?

I hope to express great thanks to readers that have shown interest in this juju debate. I dedicate this piece to all who may wish Nigeria a new political cultural face and advancement of knowledge for action and reality that can bring on a better life than as we are culturally and politically experiencing things today. Do not rest your pen and ideas; because there is still much uncovered out there. We can help bring out deeper meaning of things such as juju medicine to the table for knowledge and application for a better society.

Endnotes

1. Benedict Anderson. 1972. “The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture” in C. Holt et al (eds.) Culture and Politics in Indonesia, pp. 1-69. Ithaca:CornelUniversity Press.

2. Tokunbo Ogunbiyi, in www.nigeriaworld.com, Thursday, August 7, 2003.

3. Image source— see This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

4. Myss Caroline. 1996. Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing. New York: Three Rivers Press.

5. World Health Organization - WHO, 1978.Geneva

6 Godson Ofoaro, “Churchification in Nigeria (11)” in www.nigeriaworld.com , 3lst., Jan., 2004.

7. See Iroegbu, www.gamji.com, Nov. 13, 2003

8. See Iroegbu - in http://www.gamji.com/archive24.htm, & www.lagosforum.com, June 5, 2003

9.       i. Bronislaw Malinowski’ s 1974. Magic, Science and Religion.

          ii.       Evans-Pritchard’s 1965. Theories of Primitive Religion.

          iii.      Chinua Achebe’s 1958. Things Fall Apart.

          iv.      Ben Okri’s 1991. The Famished Road.

           v.      Sir James Frazer’s 1922. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic  

                    and Religion.

10. Smith Jordan Daniel’s “Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth.” In Amarican Ethnologist Vol. 28, No. 4 (Nov. 2001).

11. Imo State Government’s 1997 Government White Paper on the Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances of 24-25 September 1996 inOwerr,Nigeria. In Office of the Secretary of the State Government. 

12. i. Offiong, Daniel. 1991. Witchcraft Sorcery, Magic and the Social Order among the Ibibio of Nigeria.Enugu,Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers.    

     ii. Geschiere, Peter and Francis Nyamnjoh. 1998. Witchcraft as an Issue in the “Politics of Belonging”: Democratization and Urban Migrants Involvement with the HomeVillage. In African Studies Review 41 (3):69-91.

…………………………….

Culled from Chapter 11 of the Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria (2010). Available online @ www.amazon.com. This book is being used in an Online Course at www.udemy.com where Dr. Patrick Iroegbu is instructing it. You can take advantage of the ongoing free of charge classes and lectures to get more of the underlying basis of African medicines, cultures and knowledge systems for development in the modern world.

Introduction to Igbo Medicine and Culture in Nigeria (2010)

Writing books is good. Not writing at all when you can is a mistake, a moment lost to non-development and non-creativity. Write as the ideas and inspirations come by. If you cannot write but has the ideas and stuff for a good book, share it out, encourage someone else to pen it down. You can do self-publishing to bring your local, regional, national and international prompts out. It is important, however, to listen to your soul and capture what is coming up and connect such idea or ideas to issues that we live with day by day.

On his new book, My Dream of Another Nigeria (2012), one with national ideological persuasion, reported in Vanguard Online of April 8, 2012, Pastor Edegwa Joseph Oghenovo refers to his inspiration for writing and has this to say:

"In fact, when I wrote 400 pages, I heard a voice that said that I have not done anything useful. The voice said that what I should do is to proffer solutions to our problems which nobody is talking about and secondly, I was told that my language must be dignifying without being harsh and that I should not begin to mention personalities and bash them, for only by not bashing people that I can be the light of the world.

So, I was encouraged to look at issues objectively and that made me think of how to incorporate all these into my book without stepping on any toe."

What will your own dream and inspiration look like for another Nigeria? What will you do differently if you are to be in power? How much criticism will you accept and get by without appearing like a non-starter? What values would you induce and inject into Nigeria and Nigerians that the present government is not getting and must be advised and followed up?

Why must there be another country other than the present one we have right there now? What changes do you hope to see, particularly, now that the nation's population categories have become more sensitive and more resilient and can no longer be taken for a rude ride? Your dream of another Nigeria will be fundamentally, charismatically and practically focused on what, how and when?  

Let us get real. Nigeria is owned by Nigerians. How can we egg-roll it to carefully, like a fragile egg, come alive and produce and nurture development, knowledge and action for the right moment, right place, right reason, right responsibility, right obligation, right spirituality, right language, right rights, right attitude, and indeed, right peolpe?

I have the impression that Pastor Edegwa Joseph Oghenovo has succeeded in offering one solution. Not that it is new as such but by the way he has coined it and linked it to God as a call to duty and language of duty.

That solution is this. Proffer solutions to our problems which nobody is talking about by choosing your language positively and friendly, not by bashing - of which will in consequence distance rather than excite and welcome people to your national ideological persuasions to engage in doing more good than more harm.

It is up to readers and users of his ideas to explore and expand the dimensions of his new book, My Dream of Another Nigeria in the years to come. 

It is Easter time. But what does Easter mean and why is Easter Egg used in some cultures of the world? Easter is, in deed, focused on cultural epi-centre of the Christian Faith - a celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By Easter, redemption is given and re-enacted and salvation is fully hoped for. Without Easter Christianity is DEAD! This essay highlights that Easter is unique and serves as the ultimate fulcrum of Christian faith. Easter offers that moment of renewal of the Christian life in line with that of Jesus Christ as saviour and redeemer of humanity for eternal bliss. 

As such, "J E S U S can't be spelt without you. In search of you, HE died, was buried, and was raised again. His destiny was the Cross. His vision was Love. His mission was you. As CHRIST rose above the obstacle of the grave-hell, you shall rise above life's hindrances” (Ifeoma Esomonu, April 8, 2012; culled from FB post).

The celebration of Easter marks the cultural idea and performance of remembering our redemption from our sins, a rebirth to earn eternal glory. Easter day is the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death. Easter is therefore a time of Christian culture to remember Christ's eternal gift, and how Easter in itself gives us grand hope. For every Christian, we are taught that failure to attend mass on Easter day or participate in Easter culture is a grave sin (njo ogbugbu, njo na-enweghi mgbaghara). Effort is expected of every Christian to participate in the long preparations for Easter marked by duration of what is called ‘Lent’, a period of fasting and prayers. Abstinence from excessive pleasure, opening of a wider opportunity of giving alms to the needy, including the re-enacting of our Christian beliefs and faith in line with the sufferings of Christ – also known as Stations of the Cross are all invoked into action.

Devotion to prayers is heavily emphasized as well as living close by the examples of the genuine life of Christ himself as the son of God. We are encouraged to imitate Christ as a model of all that is good and enduring for God and humanity. To celebrate Easter is to celebrate the risen Lord as a mission accomplished. That is, the defeat of death at the cross of suffering and to offer redemption and hope. By dying, Jesus Christ showed us that we must not be afraid of death but to do good by living a good quality of life. His battle with death is to redeem us through the resurrection of his own life under sealed contract with God forever.

Within this contractual spiritual unity and purpose with the Almighty God, we humans shall have neither fear nor favour to stand being cheated by death and its principalities. We are absolutely covered by the precious holy blood shed on the cross of death and subsequent resurrection from the hell of death. The Christian faith was emboldened and continues to be sustained by the resurrection story and its sacred application to our Christian life and culture. Easter days like Good Friday marks the day Jesus Christ was nailed to or crucified on the cross. He was buried but on the third day, being Sunday, he rose from the dead. The news of that calling Him back to life and in heaven fulfilled the scriptures that we celebrate on Easter through songs and music of “Oh come let us adore him” and “Christ is raised/risen” for us to live in God. Christ is a symbol of affection and desire for life at the very cost of death for all humans.

As I have to stress the point, Easter comes from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified at the time of the Passover ritual. Three days later, as mentioned earlier, Christ rose from the dead. That is to say, He was resurrected and for that we celebrate the everlasting moment of his spiritual turning point on Easter Day.

As reported by www.about.com sources, "The word Easter is from Eastre, a Norse goddess whose pagan festival was observed at the spring equinox. The association of this pagan goddess with the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was only by adaptation and synthesis. There is no real connection.... It thus became a springtime anniversary, and has come to be called Easter in the Christian world" (Bible Dictionary: Easter).

For Easter and Jesus Christ as a factor of celebration, it has to be understood that when Christ was crucified on the cross He gave up His life through the separation of His body and spirit. His body was laid to rest in a tomb while His spirit, which was still alive, was in the spirit world. While there, Christ taught His gospel to those in that sphere of spiritual prisonalization and personalization. By and large, when it became three days, Jesus Christ was resurrected. That means He returned to life. This suggested that His spirit returned to His body. Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection are all major parts of the atonement and are what we passionately remember and celebrate at Easter.

The first day Jesus was resurrected started the first Easter we celebrate up to today. Resurrection means that the sacred body of Jesus Christ became immortal, never to die again and that He still lives and is with our Eternal Father in Heaven; forever. That Christ appeared to many people including several women, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, His apostles, and hundreds of other men is to lay concrete proof of Himself as the way, truth and hope. The Book of Mormon also claims that Jesus Christ appeared to people in American continent. Reference to Joseph Smith as a Prophet is in line with this. All of this was to keep the faith of evidence of his mystery and realism.

We celebrate Christ's Gift at Easter in the Christian world to represent the resurrection of Christ Himself. It is this to which we celebrate every year in the spring weather following the seasonal changes in North America among others. It is so because of the atonement to show us that death is not the end. The argument is that we may not likely be resurrected after three days, like Jesus was, but someday we will all be resurrected as redeemed beings and have a perfect body of comfort and of unchanging nature.

By experiencing death and resurrection, salvation from physical death became one of the things Christ's atonement achieved and does for us. It is primarily a gift that all of us, delivered through birth on the earth, will pick up. Remembering Easter and Christ's atonement is to call to mind the very Christ's gift of immortality that was freely pre-arranged and offered to us.

As such, Easter gives all of us big hope and equality too. Easter is a special holiday to celebrate because remembering Christ's atonement and resurrection brings hope and faith. When we celebrate Easter, let us all remember that we are culturally doing our Lord’s Day. It is certainly the celebration of the greatest victory of all times, the victory over death. Christ died so that we may be redeemed and have a good life – physical and spiritual. And, whatever and whoever can give life and hope is worth celebrating. Let us know that Jesus is the Christ and that He suffered and died for each of us. Let us also know that He was resurrected and lives on. It is best that “Easter is a beautiful holiday when we can remember Jesus Christ and worship Him as the Son of God and as our Savior and Redeemer”.

Why Easter Eggs?

Across the world, people in society celebrate Christian experiences and livelihood with the symbols of their culture. For Africans, particularly Nigerian communities, Easter is uncommon and unpopular with Easter-Eggs. However, globalization has been making in-road with imported cultural and religious symbols. This brings me to the question: The history of Easter eggs is about what? Like Christmas, there is a special Easter food that is said to be symbolic.

Peggy Trowbridge Filippone, writing in 2009, describes in “Easter Goodies” what can be considered as a pretty much common knowledge of the fact that Easter is a Christian celebration of Christ's rising, but the use of Easter eggs has pre-written cultural origins. Questions raised included, where did the coloured eggs, cute little bunnies, baby chicks, leg of lamb dinners, and lilies come from? They are all symbols of rebirth and the lamb was a traditional religious sacrifice, she argued.

Filippone further stated that Easter falls in the spring, the yearly time of renewal, when the earth renews itself after a long, cold winter. Moreover, she offers that the word Easter comes to us from the Norsemen's Eostur, Eastar, Ostara, and Ostar, and the pagan goddess Eostre, all of which involve the season of the growing sun and new birth. The Easter Bunny arose originally as a symbol of fertility, due to the rapid reproduction habits of the hare and rabbit.

The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus, she went on to say, all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons. The particulars may vary, but most cultures around the world use the egg as a symbol of new life and rebirth. In addition, a notation in the household accounts of Edward I of England showed an expenditure of eighteen pence for 450 eggs to be gold-leafed and colored for Easter gifts. The first book to mention Easter eggs by name was written over five hundred years ago. Yet, a North African population group that had become Christian much earlier in time had a custom of colouring eggs at Easter. Long hard winters often meant little food, and a fresh egg for Easter was quite a prize and a look forward to happen. Christians abstained from eating meat during the Lenten season prior to Easter. Easter was therefore the first chance to enjoy eggs and meat after the long abstinence.

Some European children go from house to house begging for Easter eggs. Egg feast and search for eggs played by children is annually organized. Called pace-egging, it comes from the old word for Easter, Pasch. The Time of Paschal, otherwise Le Pacque in French and Oge Mbulite n'onwu nke Jesu in Igbo language is so significant to all Christians and the institution of Christian faith as a rite of renewal with symbolic Easter Eggs. Many old cultures also attributed the egg with great healing powers. It is interesting to note that eggs play almost no part in the Easter celebrations of Mexico, South America, and Native American Indian cultures. Egg-rolling contests are a symbolic re-enactment of the rolling away of the stone from Christ's tomb. The decoration of small leaf-barren branches as Easter egg trees has become a popular custom in North America, especiaslly in the United States and Canada since the 1990s. Before each Easter celebration, the USA White House will organize Egg Roll celebration as a tradition of keeping the spirit of the Risen Lord under which America stands, under God. It affords children a moment of new learning and reinforcement of our atonement. We need not overemphasize the role of the Papacy in Rome of the key dimensions of Easter and for keeping the Christian faith as a total obligation. Chocolate Eggs and various kinds of Egg decors and gifts are truly and symbolically highlighted.   

The decoration of Easter eggs to further enhance their value became art form centuries ago and continues today. Dyes made from vegetables, edible flowers, fruits, coffee, tea, leaves, bark, and roots were used to tint the eggs. Lovely designs were created by wrapping the eggs in ferns before tinting. The art progressed, with western Europeans becoming expert at creating intricate patterns in vibrant colours on the small eggs. Some explanations of some of the many types of decorated eggs as reported by Filippone (cfr. www.about.com) in 2011 include:

• Etched: Traced back to Macedonia, this process involves dying the egg, applying a layer of wax in a design, then bleaching off the color leaving only the wax-covered areas with colour.
• Krashanky:  The Ukrainian word means colour, and these eggs are dyed a solid, brilliant colour, often red to symbolize the blood shed by Christ on the cross.
• Pysanky:  The term comes from the word pysaty, meaning to write,  and this describes how the egg is decorated. Intricate designs are drawn in wax on the eggs, a process closely related to batik. The eggs are then dyed many colors. Ukrainian artisans are famous for their pysanky.
• Fabergé:  Probably some of the most famous and most expensive Easter eggs known are those created by Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé in the 1800's. The eggs were made of gold, silver and jewels and most opened up to reveal exquisite tiny figures of people, animals, plants or buildings. A total of 57 eggs were made. These are obviously museum artifacts of high value.
• Binsegraas:  The Pennsylvania Dutch traditionally wrapped the pith of the binsegraas, a type of rush, in coils which were glued to eggs. Then interestingly-shaped scraps of calico cloth were pasted on the egg. The Polish use colorful rug yarn formed into elaborately-designed coils, although they, too, originally used rushes.
• Jeweled:  Designs are created by gluing any manner of sequins, beads, flowers, etc., onto blown eggs.
• Cut-Out or Carved:  Blown eggs are used also for these creations where a portion of the shell is cut away. The exterior is decorated, and the inside filled with a little scene to be viewed through the cut-out section. These can be exquisitely elaborate.
• Calico or Madras:  Eggs were wrapped in calico or madras cloth and then boiled. The water released the dyes from the cloth and transferred to the egg. Since most modern cloth is colorfast, these are rarely made nowadays. This type of egg is not to be eaten, due to the danger of the dyes.

Obviously the Europeans, Americans and Canadians have Easter eggs at Easter to very simply, allow Christians have eggs at Easter because ancient people used to celebrate the coming of spring with eggs (which were a sign of new life and rebirth). When Christianity spread and overwhelmed preliterate cultures, the old customs got absorbed into the new religion. This process, as Filippone shows, is called "religious syncretism." Among other relevant insights, Easter Eggs are used because they represent new life; and because also the economic cost is less –you get as many as your family can afford. The egg was a symbol of spring, fertility, and rebirth over 2,000 years ago, long before it began a world-wide association with the Christian celebration of Easter.

Even though there is no widely practiced pattern,it is accounted that rabbits and eggs are preliterate community fertility symbols of extreme antiquity. Birds lay eggs and rabbits give birth to large litters in the early spring and for that reason of opportunity of plenty, the use of eggs became symbols of the rising fertility of the time. Importantly also, it is observed that use of eggs was significant because people are too cheap to buy chocolate bunnies. Unavoidably also, it became necessary because Easter commemorates the resurrection of Christ, and eggs are symbolic of the new and renewed life. Nests full of eggs and new-born bunnies made the creative and symbolic essence of eggs to become of paramount importance. And don't forget to crack Eggs! Although eggs are fragile as life is but not doing anything to renew life in the risen Lord and celebrate life in God is a serious omission.

Happy Easter to All.

Transforming Nigeria can come from different perspectives such as this book has tried to illuminate in the field of foreign mission in the Philippines and elsewhere. I read with interest a copy of John Igbokwe’s fascinating book sent to me by a friend captioned A Broken Mission: Nigeria’s Failed Diplomatic Mission in the Philippines and the Fight for Justice and Embassy Reform. Unshakably set in the Philippines in the 1990s, John Igbokwe was then a student and resident in that country. By sharing his experiences and threats, and indeed, why he had to relocate to North America after the odds of the time, a book of ground breaking fight against corruption and neglect of Nigerians in its approach had been realized. To read how John Igbokwe captured those experiences of the untouchable power of the embassy staff in the Philippines should not be undermined for policy and action in transforming Nigeria.

According to John Igbokwe, with a specific spotlight on Nigeria in the Philippines, the writing of this book was undertaken to tell the story of the bad representation overseas that Nigeria and Nigerian citizens suffer at the hands of well-paid envoys to protect their national interests abroad. It has also been written to remind Nigerian citizens overseas that they do have responsibility to take their country's envoys to task when they misbehave or lose sight of their oath of office.

A Broken Missionshould be seen as “Occupy Nigerian Mission Abroad”. He argues that “what happened in the Philippines should be an object, and indeed, a critical lesson to all Nigerian citizens on how they should not play-dead-end while their official representatives abuse their office and destroy not only their patrimonial interests but also the meaning of civilization, opportunity, inclusion and security in its own right.” As a reader, I will not hesitate recommending this unique literature as a straight piece of ethnography for potential reforms in this mission field. John Igbokwe, thank you for sharing your critical story with us in Edmonton of Alberta at a time when the hurt was visible and unclouded in your heart of emissary in every community gathering we had.

To get our voices and experences heard and shared in the business and politics of transforming Nigeria for the better, here is a loaded and exploded foreign mission case study book to be read for courage, insight and inspiration. There might be some contentions from the other side of the story, but this book has opened a knowledge track to heal the insanity of a broken mission and undiplomatic governance and will be relevant for many years to come. It will, because, a fight for justice and embassy reform is a fight for transforming Nigeria with a purpose. 

A Broken Mission

Author: John M. O. Igbokwe
Pages - 296
ISBN: 978-1-4670-7026-3 (sc); 978-1-4670-7025-6 (hc)
Year of Publication: December 12, 2011 

Published by AuthorHouse,REGINA,SASKATCHEWAN,CANADA

Retail price: $19.95; £12.95 (sc) $28.99; £20.99 (hc)

………………………………..

Dr. Patrick Iroegbu (Edmonton, AB).

Author of Healing Insanity: A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary Nigeria (2010).

See also article: "Migration and Diaspora: Craze, Significance and Challenges"

Reading tributes and eulogies (good knowledges, studies or attributes) in honour of Dim Ojukwu since his passing has been of tremendous exercise. I have enjoyed them and I am particularly sure people who have not paid attention to him or did not know much about this extraordinary man and leader of his people have gained insights and now know how to place him in history, military, political and social relationships in a nation building.

The part four of the “Quotable Measures of the Man: Dim Ojukwu” brings the conclusion of the series I have put together in this column. I have enjoyed a lot of good will from readers and I just want to thank everyone for contributing in one way or the other in assembling the materials. It took me quite some work to hunt for various insightful tributes, comments, abstracts and quotes devoted to the life and times of Dim Ojukwu.

As the four parts collections do not claim exhaustive, I also want to ask those I may have missed out including their useful and well cherished tributes and eulogies to know that they are important. And that no matter where they may be lying in one newspaper, internet websites, funeral oration notes and registers, wake-keeping keynote speeches, papers, books or in the ears of those who heard them, be assured that they are recognized as part of the contributions and reciprocities we have clearly and passionately given to those who served their people well, like Dim Ojukwu did.

Let us continue to pray for the bereaved family of Dim Ojukwu and his kinsmen and women – the Igbo people as a whole to continue to, not only celebrate Ojukwu and realize his legacies, but also to bravely move on with their own life and times. Each o has akaraka (destiny) and what Dim Ojukwu exemplified is how people work into and out of the opportunities and moments that shape their akaraka. As such what Ojukwu happened to be and lived for came from his own akaraka.

I did a small song while giving a keynote speech during the Wake-keep and Prayer Service organized by the Igbo Cultural Association of Edmonton (ICAE) in honour of Dim Ojukwu on March 3, 2012 in Edmonton of Alberta, Canada, which truly touched the gathered Igbo and Nigerians and their friends in attendance with the concept of akaraka of a person. What he was for which we eulogize him is indeed what can be described as "O si n’akara ya" (it is from and to his destiny for God and humanity). Each of us has clear and latent akaraka to work through our life and times. But the most important thing is to capture one’s circumstances that will make one's akaraka to come out and serve others. Ojukwu did this with a unique difference.      

Below are therefore the concluding quotes and abstracts which I truly hope you will equally appreciate and understand the manner of man Dim Ojukwu was to his people and Nigeria before he departed to eternity.

1.      Emeka Ojukwu had become in many respects an institution that was reckoned with by all and sundry, both friends and foes alike. He was a man of charisma, courage and intellect who used his prodigious endowment and uncommon circumstances in the history of his country to positively affect human lives, especially those of his generation. The Ikemba, as he was popularly called, was, according to a Greek proverb, “a truth spoken before its time”. (Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 2012).

2.      “The story of Ikemba is the story of a man who spurned the silver spoon and jettisoned the comfort that life offered him from birth to follow a passion of service to fatherland and the defense of the defenseless.” (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

3.      Ojukwu’s belief in the Nigerian project was underlined by the fact that he not only joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) on return from exile in 1982, but also vied for the presidency of the country. (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

4.      “Ikemba had a vision of a Nigeria where every citizen lives without fears in any part thereof; a country great in name and esteem; a country well governed and devoid of the vultures of tribalism, discrimination, ethnic segregation, religious nepotism, sectional cabalism and a nation where potentials and might are not rendered weak by the vultures of corruption and greed.” (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

5.      All along, Ojukwu knew that he would settle for nothing but the secession of the East. And the Aburi accord all but conceded that. And so, when Ojukwu proclaimed the Republic of Biafra, the supportive slogan was, “On Aburi we stand.” Gowon’s administration countered with the slogan, “To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.” The battle line was drawn. And so Nigerians all fought a bloody civil war for 30 months. (Minabere Ibelema, 2012).

6.      “Ikemba! Be rest assured that this house will not fall; the termites will no longer eat down our fences; the crows and vultures will no longer patch on our heritage; strangers will no longer walk over our portion, for the sun can only rise on our heritage.” (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

7.      Odumegwu-Ojukwu came ahead of his time, lived ahead of his time, and died ahead of his time since the laudable visions he longed for were yet to be realized. (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

8.      To the generality of Nigerians, especially the younger generation, though, Dim Ojukwu was the flag bearer of All Peoples Grand Alliance- APGA. He was a man determined to lead Ndigbo out of the wilderness of oppression, marginalization and political disenfranchisement by actively participating in the process himself. They would remember him as the man that continually inserted himself into politics and encouraged other Igbos not to turn away from politics even when the odds seemed stacked against them. In that spirit, many young men and women, of Igbo extraction, followed him into politics and now occupy important positions in the nation and have started on the march towards placing Ndigbo in the mainstream of political spectrum. They have come to believe, as Ojukwu did, that full participation in politics will afford Ndigbo opportunities as well as open hitherto closed doors. Thanks to Ojukwu. (Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, 2012).

9.      “Our dear nation and her leaders owe it to the memory of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu to strengthen Nigeria as an indivisible political entity where justice, peace, love, and unity reigns. “Where national interest is supreme; where corruption is a thing of the past; and where every Nigerian is free and able to actualise his or her legitimate dreams and aspirations unmolested in any part of the country, irrespective of religious, political, and tribal affiliations and origin.  This is indeed the greatest honour and tribute he can get from us.” (Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 2012).

10.  This must be the greatest heist in the history of Nigeria where anything—provided it is an absurdity—is possible. The Nigerian government, an unrepentant genocidist system, hijacked the burial and funeral services of Dim Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra—the same Biafra that is the victim of Nigeria’s genocide! Ongoing genocide! While the Igbo watched and cheered… (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

11.  Nigeria has lost a true patriot. Alas, the centre of gravity and equilibrium of the Igbo nation in Nigerian political power game is no more. We have lost a great scholar, a philosopher, great historian, a political clearing house east of the Niger, a soldiers’ soldier, the apotheosis of responsible and responsive leadership, astute administrator and a leader magnificus. (Senator Ben Ndi Obi, 2012).

12.  When the dust settles, and crocodile tears disappear, Biafrans will begin to weep anew, because what Nigeria could not achieve on the battlefield, she at long last succeeded in doing in the graveyard: capture Ojukwu. Yes, Nigeria draped Dim Ojukwu’s coffin in Nigeria’s shamed national flag, a flag steeped with the criminal sentiments and inhuman acts which Ojukwu led Biafra against; the very thing that Ojukwu led us Biafrans to defend ourselves against. While the Igbo looked on and made speeches… (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

13.  Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was not an ordinary person or one of the run of the mill leaders that we often eulogise after death in Nigeria. He was much more than that. I had read and heard so much about him throughout my youth and in various history books including the bestseller written by Fredrick Forsythe, his old English public school friend and biographer, titled ''Emeka'' and another book titled ''The Dogs of War'' which was later converted into a Hollywood blockbuster. (Femi Fani-Kayode, 2012).

14.  Known for hypocrisy of the worst kind—of the psychiatric type—the Nigerians and their government came and poured encomium on that solemn occasion and afterwards. Empty words they were, forgotten before the breath forming them was even expired. Yes, if Dim Ojukwu in life was so correct about Nigeria, as they all now admit, why are these “mourners” and these eulogists not pushing his redemptive agenda to save comatose Nigeria now? If Dim Ojukwu “was all that” to Nigeria, why did they not support him in post-war times to salvage Nigeria? Many of them are actually celebrating. They have buried the head of Biafra; therefore, Biafra is finally no more…so they think. While the Igbo celebrated… (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

15.  Even in death, Emeka Ojukwu’s presence looms and remains larger than life. As a complete exercise in courage and doggedness, the Ikemba was a lodestar, and will remain one especially for many of the present generation. He personified service and commitment to his people, Ndigbo. That is why he will continue to dwell in their hearts and minds. He will also dwell in the hearts and minds of many across the length and breath of Nigeria for whom he was a rare symbol of courageous leadership and political perspicacity. (Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 2012).

16.  Notice how they studiously avoided the word, “Biafra”, as if on cue and under  threat of Treason charges? They would not even muster the courage to say that Dim Ojukwu led Biafra and that Biafra was correct then, was correct after, and is still correct now. They dared not call him a true Biafran or a Biafran icon. Yet, they were all willing to parrot on about how Dim Ojukwu fought against injustice, led the Igbo, blah, blah, blah: but no mention of Biafra. While the Igbo looked on and moved on… (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

17.  I therefore, mourn the exit of this great giant, an Iroko, the symbol of Igbo’s resistance and pillar of hope. I mourn the transition of a great leader who personified history. I mourn a leader with irresistible aura and personal charisma, a man of great oratory, a star of our generation, a man of noble reasoning and infinite faculty. I salute the only Nigerian leader with multi-lingual potential; in fact, the only one that, while he lived, spoke Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba with ease and English and French in poetic style. (Senator Ben Ndi Obi, 2012).

18.  Ojukwu has fallen yet he lives. He is buried, yet what he stood for, the Aburi declaration included, is not buried with him. Those ideals shall live and endure forever and shall be manifested in our lifetime no matter how hard the Nigerian state seeks to deny or resist them. The right to self-determination, the freedom to live in peace with our values and cultural identity unmolested and intact even in a multi-religious and multi-cultural state, the right to be free from genocide, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and tribal bigotry and oppression and the right to live in a country where all people are equal regardless of their state of origin, religious persuasion or ethnic identity are ideals that Ojukwu symbolized and fought for during the civil war and indeed throughout his life. These values and principles live and are not dead and buried with him. (Femi Fani-Kayode, 2012).

19.  Nigeria has never resulted in any positive returns to the Igbo or to Biafra. Rather, the results are more humiliation, more marginalization, more mockery, more deprivation, more subjugation and more killing and dispossession of the Igbo and Biafrans by Nigeria. They have certainly let Dim Ojukwu down—very much so—by allowing Nigeria to take, not just the lead but, the entire stage in the man’s final rites of passage.  I believe we read Dim Ojukwu at one time say that he wants to die as a Biafran, be buried and remembered as a Biafran. But this class of Igbo, all they wanted was to avoid any association with Biafra for a man who was made by Biafra and who, to the extent that one person alone can ever symbolize Biafra, was that symbol of Biafra. As usual, they were looking after their own personal interests; why even pretend that they were there to bury Dim Ojukwu? No; they only scheme to deprive a dead man of what he owns and prizes the most (Biafra) in order to please their assumed Nigeria-paymasters, figuring that he is now powerless. Shame! (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

13. Odimegwu Ojukwu’s return to Nigeria after many years in exile and participation in politics brought awareness to the plight of many Nigerians. (Michael Adeniyi, 2012).

20.  This entire exercise has thus turned into the proverbial “the dead burying the dead.” But, don’t look therein for a dead Dim Ojukwu. Rather, see Nigeria there. Yes, Nigeria is dead alright. As are those insensitive and insensible Igbo who along with Nigeria sought to bury dead flesh. What they fail to understand is that Biafra lives on; therefore Dim Ojukwu lives. They cannot conceive of Biafra being actualized; they think that Biafra is dead, which only proves that they are the ones who are really dead. Because, Biafra never dies: how can you kill and bury a correct and right-eous concept? Biafra will be actualized; in our lifetime. (Oguchi Nkwocha, MD).

21.  We shall continue the fight for liberation where you stopped. The battle has passed to the next generation. The threats of continuous threats of death, destruction, assassination, incarceration, detention, jail, persecution, misrepresentation and the manipulations and activities of the powers that be and the princes and principalities in the highest places in our land cannot stop or intimidate us for ''our weapons are not carnal but are mighty through God in the pulling down of strongholds''. May God bless and protect your precious and gallant soul as you join your ancestors in the great halls of Valhalla where the brave shall live forever. May God watch over your dear wife Bianca and your beautiful children and may your name never be erased from the annals of Nigerian history. Rest in peace, great and proud warrior. (Femi Fani-Kayode, 2012).

22.  The death of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu is a low point for all of us. As we mourn his passing, we must not be lost on the significance of his immensely active and trail-blazing life. For living a worthy life that positively touched so many in our land, we must, as we mourn, also celebrate his life. (Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 2012).

23.  I remember with nostalgia our struggle to recover the Vilaska Lodge from the Lagos State Government when they attempted to eject you out of your father’s property. I recall our trip to Kano to present your famous book, Because I am Involved. On our way to the palace of your great friend, the Emir of Kano, as soon as the good people of Kano noticed your presence, they lifted the car in which you and I were riding off the ground and landed us safely at the palace of the Emir. (Senator Ben Ndi Obi, 2012).

24.  You will forever be remembered for all the efforts you made to bring the Igbos together, and the personal denials you suffered while you propagated their cause. Great leader, as you now travel to the great beyond, may the angels of God receive you at the portals of heaven; and may the good Lord grant your soul rest in His bosom. Amen. (Senator Ben Ndi Obi, 2012).

25.  My enduring image of Ojukwu came from a calendar that heralded the January 15, 1966 coup. It, of course, featured Maj.-Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, as the new head of state, and the military governors of the four regions: Lt. Col. Hassan Usman Katsina (Northern Region), Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi (Western Region), Lt. Col. David Ejoor (Midwestern Region) and Lt. Col. Ojukwu (Eastern Region). They all wore the typical military stern look. Still, there was something distinctive and foreboding about Ojukwu. Perhaps, it was the feathered military cap. Perhaps, it was the brooding look. Maybe it was Ojukwu’s middle name, Odumegwu, a name that connotes and commands awe. (Minabere Ibelema, 2012).

26.  "What all the Igbos and all of us who belonged to the old Eastern Region then are doing now is to celebrate Ojukwu's achievements as a governor and as leader of his people." Ojukwu did not win the Nigerian Civil War, he brought political victory to his people. "The Nigerian government may have won the military victory but the political victory was won by the Ibos because they established the fact that they are not a people you can ignore in the Federal Republic of Nigeria anymore." (Gov. Rotimi Chubuike Amaechi, 2012).

27.  Dim Ojkukwu was one of the sharpest architects of modern Nigerian army. We salute him. (General Azubuike Ihejirika, Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, 2012).

28.  As we mourn the huge loss of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu  Ojukwu the Ikemba of Nnewi as a leader, our condolence go to the family. From whichever prism we choose to look at him and his life, he was a historical figure in the history of Nigeria; the story of his life holds an important symbolism that should be understood in the efforts to cement Nigeria’s unity. May he rest in peace. (British Nigerian Councilors, 2012).

29.  A good way to pay tribute to General Dim Ojukwu is to tell his stories the way he was certified in them given the crucial ethnic circumstances of Nigeria. Here is a man who came from a wealthy background but chose to work for the vulnerable population. Here is a man who abandoned his Oxford Degrees and the opportunities to live a high life to serve rural communities through community organizing. Here is a man who chose to train in Nigerian military as a recruit realizing he would fight injustices like a professional soldier. And he did. Let us adore his foresight, courage and persistence for his people to be counted in Nigerian affairs. He lived a hero. This man of the people never faltered. God bless his soul. (Dr. Patrick Iroegbu, 2012).

30.  Dim Ojukwu was a man endowed with many fine qualities. Because of his multi-faceted and multi-dimensional gifts from the almighty, gifts which included the gift of garb, confidence, domineering presence and intellect, General Odumegwu Ojukwu would be remembered by many different people in many different ways. To some, he would ever remain the charismatic, young lieutenant colonel and governor of the defunct eastern Nigeria, whose sonorous voice and charming Oxford English accent and dominating presence, instantly swept them off kilter. A former Biafran soldier once averred that, during the Biafran war, many soldiers used to tremble in his presence just because he exuded an aura that electrified any environment he was in. (Alfred Obiora Uzokwe, 2012).

31.  From son to father: Debe Odumegwu Ojukwu wrote:

Tribute

Dearest Father,

Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

Ikemba Nnewi

Dike Dioranma Ndigbo

Agu na Eche Ibe na Awka

Amuma na Egbeigwe

Odenigbo Ngwo

Ome Ife Suani,

1.      I sat ensconsed in my little coin of vantage while you dominated and strangled the world like the colossus you are.

2.      In comparison with your towering stature, my abject status pales irrefutably into total insignificance.

3.      I must however confess that I had always felt secure and comfortable in my little world. For your presence shielded me from this harsh world.

Now that you are gone, my cover is blown for you have left me exposed and defenseless, armed only with your teachings and memories of the quality time we shared together – father to son.

I am sad but satisfied that you only left me to stay with your creator who sent you to me in the first place.

My promise is to follow your footsteps in order to fulfill my destiny. (Debe Ojukwu, 2012).

Let me conclude the series on the “Quotable Measures of the Man: Dim Ojukwu of Nigeria (Parts 1 to 4)” by stating the obvious reality that Dim Ojukwu was a visible person and hero well cut out with measures of living for the other, well tailored, dressed up and inter-culturally shown and illuminated, embraced and expressed in the inevitable Nigerian situation. There have been several tributes, eulogies and commentaries on Dim Ojukwu before, during and after his passing and burial. Whether one looks in the newspapers, internet websites, magazines, books, journals and electronic media of different devices – for example, Youtube, Facebook, and twitter, or one delves into interviewing people who know him closely or listened to him make speeches and participated in events, one thing this writer discovered as a common phenomenon of him is the special focus he received as a unique and magnetizing person. He was generally acclaimed as a man of the people who made great strides in fighting ethnic and religious divides and injustices in order to re-shape Nigeria and its unity for everyone to belong and contribute.

At the end of his life and times, Dim Ojukwu emerged as the greatest hero and personality Nigeria ever celebrated. May all the causes he championed to unify the Igbo and strengthen Nigerian unity rekindle modern Nigerian leaders to do better. May the symbol of audacity of his mighty soul and heart for community development and nation building left behind keep us going as he rests in great peace, Amen. Adieu Dim Ojukwu. 

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Dr. Patrick Iroegbu is a social and cultural medical anthropologist and is the author of Healing Insanity: A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary Nigeria (2010).